SBIR Phase I: High Temperature Atmospherically Stable Plasmonic Nanochain Solar Selective Coating for Concentrating Solar Power

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目将降低抛物面槽式聚光太阳能发电(CSP)的成本，CSP使用槽形镜将太阳光聚焦到管子上，以收集热量发电。管子上覆盖着一种黑色物质--吸光体，这种物质可以有效地吸收光线，并能经受住高温。在当今的商业设计中，吸收管被包装在真空保持玻璃套内，形成一个“接收器”。标准的接收器有缺点：(1)当气体泄漏到接收器中时，它们就会失效。(2)吸收管通过透明护套向四面八方散热，浪费能量。(3)吸波涂层复杂。避免这些问题的接收器设计需要新颖的吸波涂层和在制造过程中应用这些涂层的经济高效的方法。该项目将改进最近开发的一种新型吸收涂层，并展示一种将其应用于接收管的简单、经济有效的方法。改进措施包括通过实验研究目前的涂层在实际操作条件下抵抗化学降解的原因，并相应地调整其组成以进一步提高其性能。涂层的制造和应用过程将通过建造和性能测试实际接收器在实验室规模上进行演示。通过降低CSP抛物线槽的成本，将实现该项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力。抛物线槽CSP正在美国和其他寻求减少污染和提高能源安全的国家迅速发展，为CSP部件创造了一个日益增长的全球市场。接收器是抛物线槽CSP中不可缺少且价格昂贵的部件。例如，一座抛物面槽式CSP电厂，其大小足以产生250兆瓦的电力，其中包含大约60,000个接收器管。这个SBIR项目，通过生产一种使用新型吸收涂层的低成本、无真空接收器，将降低CSP的资本和维护成本。新的设计和材料将简化接收器制造，提高性能，并消除易出故障的真空。在该项目下进行的实验将增加对吸波涂层性能的科学理解，并将展示新的接收器制造技术。降低CSP的能源成本将加快这种取之不尽、用之不竭的100%国内能源的部署，加快实现无污染、安全的能源经济的进程。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will lower the cost of parabolic trough concentrating solar power (CSP), which uses trough-shaped mirrors to focus sunlight on tubes to harvest heat for generating electricity. The tubes are coated with a dark substance, 'absorber', that efficiently absorbs light and can withstand high temperatures. In present-day commercial designs, the absorber tube is packaged inside a vacuum-holding glass sheathe to form a 'receiver'. Standard receivers have drawbacks: (1) When gas leaks into them, they fail. (2) The absorber pipe radiates heat in all directions through the transparent sheathe, wasting energy. (3) The absorber coatings are complex. Receiver designs that avoid these problems require novel absorber coatings and cost-effective ways to apply those coatings during manufacture. This project will improve a recently developed novel absorber coating and demonstrate a simple, cost-effective method for applying it to receiver tubes. Improvements include experimentally investigating why the coating in its present form resists chemical degradation under realistic operating conditions and adjusting its composition accordingly to further increase its performance. The coating manufacturing and application processes will be demonstrated at laboratory scale by building and performance-testing actual receivers. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will be achieved by reducing the cost of parabolic trough CSP. Parabolic-trough CSP is being developed rapidly in the US and other countries that seek to reduce pollution and increase energy security, creating a growing global market for CSP components. Receivers are an indispensable and costly part of parabolic trough CSP. For example, a parabolic trough CSP plant large enough to produce 250 megawatts of electric power contains about 60,000 receiver tubes. This SBIR project, by producing a lower-cost, vacuum-free receiver that uses a novel absorptive coating, will reduce both the capital and maintenance costs of CSP. The new design and materials will simplify receiver manufacture, improve performance, and do away with failure-prone vacuums. Scientific understanding of the properties of absorber coatings will be increased by experiments performed under this project, and new receiver-manufacturing technology will be demonstrated. Reducing the cost of energy from CSP will speed deployment of this inexhaustible, 100% domestic source of power, speeding progress toward a pollution-free, secure energy economy.