Tandem structured spectrally selective coating layer of copper oxide nanowires combined with cobalt oxide nanoparticles

Abstract

Tandem structured spectrally selective coating layer of copper oxide nanowires combined with cobalt oxide nanoparticles, Nano Energy, http://dx.Abstract Increasing the light absorption across the wide solar spectrum has important implications for applications in solar-thermal and photovoltaic energy conversion. Here, we report novel tandem structures combing two different materials with complementary optical properties and microstructures: copper oxide (CuO) nanowires (NWs) and cobalt oxide (Co 3 O 4 ) nanoparticles (NPs). Copper oxide NWs of 100-200 nm in diameter and 5µm long are grown thermally on copper foil in air and cobalt oxide NPs of 100-200 nm in diameter are synthesized hydrothermally. Tandem structures of spectrally selective coating (SSC) layer are built with three different methods: spray-coating, dip-coating of cobalt oxide NPs into copper oxide NWs forest, and transferring of copper oxide NWs layer onto cobalt oxide NPs layer. The tandemstructured SSC layers fabricated from the spray-coating, dip-coating and transferring methods exhibit figure of merit (FOM) values of 0.875, 0.892 and 0.886, respectively, which are significantly higher than that of the starting copper oxide NWs (FOM = 0.858) and cobalt oxide NPs (FOM= 0.854). Our results demonstrate the efficacy of using novel tandem structures for enhanced light absorption of solar spectrum, which will find broad applications in solar energy conversion.

Evolutionary Photonics for Renewable Energy, Nanomedicine, and Advanced Material Engineering

“…A possible drawback of broadband absorbing devices is related to infrared thermal radiation loss, an effect that becomes important at higher sun concentrations and high temperatures. To address this issue, a selective absorber with judiciously positioned cutoff wavelengths can help suppressing infrared absorption and minimizing radiation loss . More recently, another Au nanoporous structure exhibiting a cutoff wavelength was proposed in ref.…”

Fabrication of Carbon Nanotube/Indium Tin Oxide “Inverse Tandem” Absorbing Coatings with Tunable Spectral Selectivity for Solar–Thermal Applications

“…[5] Most of the coating technologies involve vacuum (physical and chemical) deposition [5] and sputtering, [7][8][9] whereas only af ew comprise wet depositionp rocesses. [3,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] Amongt he application techniques used for wet coating are spin coating, [11][12][13] roll-and coil-coating, [14][15][16] dip coating, [17][18][19] and spraying. [14,18,[20][21][22][23] Recently,A mri et al reviewed the progress in the production of flat plate solar selective absorber materials by sol-gel methods and demonstrated that the optical properties and stability of the selective coating can be simply controlled by tuning the reactionc onditions during the synthesis course.…”

“…[20] Very recently,K im et al fabricated tandem structures of spectrally selectivec oatings using copper oxide nanowires and cobalt oxide nanoparticles by employing three differentm ethods: spray coating, dip coating, and transferring. [22] Theb est absorbing material ever produced consists of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). CNTs only reflect light weakly but they also absorb light strongly.B ecause of their unique optical properties,C NTs are excellent candidates for solar absorber coatings.…”

Refractory Solar Selective Coatings

“…Although this provides an elegant proof-of-concept, tungsten is easily oxidized and so is not suitable for ambient CSP receivers. More complex nanostructures are under consideration as selective absorber coatings, but it remains to be seen if these materials can be produced cost effectively 10 .…”