Abstract
A new absorber for a volumetric receiver was designed, built, and tested on an existing volumetric, receiver test bed (200 kWt) at the Plataforma Solar de Almeria test facility in Spain. Volumetric air receivers are currently being investigated for use in solar central receiver power plants because of their inherent simplicity. The volumetric air receiver is a unique type of solar central receiver that uses a porous absorber (heat exchanger), on which the solar energy is concentrated and absorbed within its volume. Air flows through the absorber, convectively transferring energy from the absorber to the air. Volumetric receivers have applications in electricity production, industrial process heat, and chemical processing. We designed this new volumetric receiver absorber to use a porous ceramic material. This material was selected because of its structural strength, high temperature capability, and the potential for using smaller pieces to build up an absorber. The ceramic absorber was tested at the Plataforma Solar de Almeria with a solar flux of up to 1200 kW/m/sup 2/, and it produced outlet air temperatures of 7300C. The porous ceramic material has exhibited reasonable thermal efficiencies and excellent structural integrity in the high-flux, high-temperature environment. In this paper we summarize previous tests on the volumetric air receiver and present the current absorber design and test results.
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