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IK4-TEKNIKER has developed a coating for parabolic cylinder collector pipes in solar thermal power plants that is able to work at temperatures of 600ºC with high absorptivity and low emissivity.
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Parabolic cylinder collector technology for solar thermal power plants plays a key role in the field of renewable energies, given that it accounts for more than 1,500 MW of operational capacity worldwide.
To increase the competitiveness of this technology, it is necessary to increase the plant efficiency. This increased efficiency implies an increase in operating temperature above the existing 400ºC.
However, currently, the existing selective absorbers are degraded at temperatures above 400ºC.
To overcome this issue, a multilayer functional coating was developed on actual 4m length pipes. The coating consists of a metallic, infra-red radiation reflective layer, an absorbent cermet type visible radiation layer composed of metallic particles in a dielectric matrix and an anti-reflective layer formed by a low index refractive oxide.
This coating is able to work at temperatures of 600ºC without showing any degradation in accelerated ageing tests, shows high absorptivity and low emissivity for high temperature solar thermal power plants.
