SBIR Phase II: Solar Thermal Collector Using Advection Enhanced Nano-Porous Insulating Media

SBIR 第二阶段：使用平流增强纳米多孔绝缘介质的太阳能集热器

• 批准号: 1456103
• 负责人: Mark Miles
• 金额: $ 74.98万
• 依托单位: Mark Miles Consulting Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-03-01 至 2017-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1456103&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Solar; Thermal

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will profoundly improve the economics of solar water heating (SWH) systems. Little innovation has occurred in this area since the advent of evacuated tube solar thermal collectors in the 1980s. Despite these advances the cost of SWH systems is much higher than the cost of fossil fuels in the U.S. Thus while there exists a flourishing global market in excess of $20B, the market for such systems in the U.S. is virtually nonexistent. The solar thermal collector technology under investigation has demonstrated performance in terms of efficiency vs. output temperature that is already superior to that of state-of-the-art collectors. Economic modeling further indicates that in high volume production the collector would be substantially less expensive than commercial products. This combination of improved performance and reduced cost has the potential to make SWH economically viable in more than 40 states in the U.S. An outcome which could provide a solid economic foundation for the revival of a domestic industry, and accelerate the proliferation of these systems worldwide. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will extend the performance envelope of two solar thermal collector architectures identified during the Phase I effort. Current solar thermal collectors exhibit non-economic price/performance metrics and are constrained to water heating applications in only a few markets worldwide. The first architecture utilizes advection to improve the insulating properties of a granular nano-porous medium. The Phase II effort will transition this architecture from prototype to the fabrication and characterization of an engineering scale collector. It is expected that increasing the size and solar simulator output (currently below reference standard) will increase efficiency significantly. Material dopants, heat transfer fluid dynamics, and optical absorber thermal properties will be examined computationally and experimentally to further improve performance. The second architecture significantly extends the operational range. This effort will explore techniques to expand this range including the use of material dopants to modify optical characteristics and the development of passive technique for concentrating optics. Computer simulations suggest that outputs comparable to that of a parabolic trough are possible.

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）II期项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将深刻改善太阳能供水（SWH）系统的经济学。自1980年代撤离管太阳能热收集器出现以来，该地区几乎没有发生过创新。尽管有这些进步，但SWH系统的成本远高于美国化石燃料的成本，尽管存在蓬勃发展的全球市场超过20B美元，但美国此类系统的市场几乎不存在。正在研究的太阳能热收集器技术在效率与输出温度方面表现出了比最先进的收集器优越的性能。经济建模进一步表明，在大量生产中，收藏家将比商业产品便宜得多。这种提高的绩效和降低成本的结合有可能使SWH在美国的40多个州经济上可行，这是一个结果，这可能为恢复国内行业的复兴提供稳固的经济基础，并加速全球这些系统的泛滥。这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目将扩大在I期努力中确定的两个太阳热收集器体系结构的性能信封。当前的太阳能热收集器表现出非经济价格/绩效指标，并且仅在全球少数几个市场中被限制在供水应用中。第一个体系结构利用对流来改善颗粒状纳米孔培养基的绝缘性能。第二阶段的努力将把这种体系结构从原型转变为工程量表收集器的制造和表征。预计增加的大小和太阳能模拟器输出（目前低于参考标准）将大大提高效率。材料掺杂剂，传热流体动力学和光吸收特性将在计算和实验上进行检查，以进一步提高性能。第二个体系结构大大扩展了操作范围。这项工作将探索扩展该范围的技术，包括使用材料掺杂剂修改光学特性和开发被动技术以浓缩光学元件。计算机模拟表明，与抛物线槽相当的输出是可能的。