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ePaper created 2014-04-30, 16:22:09 | version 1.30.01
FOCUS// The HZDR Research Magazine WWW.Hzdr.DE 06 07 AIMING HIGH: The World’s first commercial solar tower facility near Seville, Spain, produces enough energy to power 6,000 households. Photo: Abengoa Solar, S.A. studying different kinds of materials to assess their potential to act as an absorber, including carbon and nitrides or oxide based nanocomposites that can be customized, produced, and modified at the ion beam center with its variety of experimental options. The one thing all of these various efficient absorbers have in common is their color – black. "Really it’s like your car’s coat of paint: If it’s black, it gets much hotter on the outside than does a light-colored one," the physicist explains. The HZDR researchers are able to take highly precise measurements of this everyday phenomenon. To this end, a new facility – called a cluster tool – was installed at the ion beam center. Covering an area of a few square meters, stainless steel chambers are interconnected by tubes. Samples can be introduced into this vacuum system through a small gate and passed from one chamber to the next. The cluster tool offers scientists unprecedented possibilities. Different kinds of atoms can be specifically introduced into a sample. "This basically allows us to define the material's properties," explains Gintautas Abrasonis. At the same time, using ion beam analytics, measurements of the distribution of different chemical elements within the layers can be obtained and their optical and thermal properties adjusted. Running tests on black layers under environmental conditions The cluster tool’s main piece is a chamber, inside of which real-life conditions can be simulated. During the day, it gets rather hot in those locations where most solar facilities are found, whereas at night, temperatures tend to plummet. Wherever the focused sunlight lands, temperatures higher than 1,000 degrees C may result. In addition, the layering has to be mechanically stable so that a sandstorm is not able to scratch it up. And the normal environment – air, oxygen, water vapors – should not be able to harm the absorber film either. In other words, the material has to be able to withstand a COLLABORATING PARTNERS: Spanish solar company Abengoa’s Campus Palmas Altas headquarters in Seville, Spain. Photo: Abengoa Solar, S.A.