In this work, Cu 1.5 Mn 1.5 O 4 spinel ceramic pigments have been successfully prepared by a facile and cost-effective sol-gel self-combustion method and annealed at the temperature ranging from 500 °C to 900 °C for 1 h. The reaction process was discussed in detail through thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) techniques. The optical properties of the ceramic pigments annealed at various temperatures were also determined from the corresponding diffuse reflectance spectra in the 2.5-20 µm range, which elucidated that the optimum spectrally selective paint coatings could be fabricated according to the pre-selection ceramic pigments. Ceramic pigments were utilized to fabricate the thickness sensitive spectrally selective (TSSS) paint coatings by means of the convenient and practical spray-coating technique, and TSSS paint coatings based on pigments annealed at 700 °C showed absorptance of α s =0.914-0.923 and emittance of ε T =0.244-0.357. Besides, thermal stability tests were carried out by prolonged and extended accelerated thermal investigation at 227 °C. TSSS paint coatings exhibited no observable visual changes and the performance criterion (PC) values reached the qualified requirement.
IntroductionDuring the last decades, the transition metal oxides with spinel structure have attracted significant attention due to their unique properties such as chemical inertness, high corrosion resistance, high mechanical strength, good thermal shock resistance, excellent optical and catalytic properties, emerging their potential applications ranging from optics, electronics, magnetism, and catalysis to energy conversion and storage 1-5 . In particular, the feature endows this material with promising application as solar selective absorber in solar-thermal energy conversion systems 6, 7 . From the viewpoint of practical application, the solar absorber materials employed in low-to-mid temperature domain such as plate solar collectors exhibits a high solar absorptance in the UV-Vis-NIR solar spectrum and a low thermal emittance in the IR wavelength region 8 .Many research efforts have been devoted to the preparation of the ternary and the binary spinel compounds serving as the solar-absorbing materials in the last decades, for instance, CuFeMnO x , CuCoMnO x , CuMnO x spinels and Cu x Co y O z spinel-like 9 .Kaluža and co-workers have succeeded in fabricating the black colored CuFeMnO 4 spinel powders and CuFeMn-oxide/SiO 2 film using sol-gel process at the heat-treatment temperature of 500 °C 10 . The prepared film was composed of the