Effect of metal particles in cermets on spectral selectivity

Abstract

Most cermet-based coatings achieve their solar selectivities by the tandem interference effect, which has been widely studied. This study focused on the spectral selectivity achieved by the scattering effect of metal particles in cermet-based coatings. Previous research proved that reasonable solar selectivities can be obtained for cermets in the regime of particles with a radius of the order of 100 nm, but their solar absorptance is low (<90%). In our research, the effect of metal particles on the spectral selectivity of cermets was studied by the Mie theory and Monte Carlo simulation for Cr, Ni, and W particles with radii of 10 nm, 50 nm, 100 nm, and 200 nm, which were embedded in Al2O3 and occupied 5% of the volume fraction. It was found that by arranging different particles in different layers, a very high solar absorptance (95.6%) could be achieved. Since their thermal emittance (∼25% at 600 °C) was higher than that of normal coatings, these coatings are recommended to be used in solar absorbers that have a high concentration factor. Finally, the dependent scattering effect was qualitatively considered by the coupled-dipole approach. With a metal volume fraction of 5%, it was found that the effect of dependent scattering was small and should not change the conclusions made based on independent scattering.