High temperature in-air stability of solar absorber coatings based on aluminium titanium oxynitride nanocomposites

One of the major challenges in Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) implies an increase of the working temperature of the solar receiver. In particular, current central tower systems operate at maximum temperatures of 550 ºC mainly due to the severe degradation that the state of the art absorber paints (i.e. Pyromark®) suffer at higher temperatures. In previous works [1,2] aluminum titanium oxynitrides Al_yTi_1-y(O_xN_1-x) were shown to be excellent candidate materials for solar selective coatings (SSC). These results confirmed that the designed SSCs based on materials withstand breakdown at 600 ºC in air after 900 hours of thermal cycling.
In this paper we discuss the high temperature (up to 700ºC) stability in air of a solar absorber coating based on Al_yTi_1-y(O_xN_1-x) deposited by cathodic vacuum arc (CVA) at higher working pressure (P = 2.1 Pa) than those discussed in [1] and [2]. The composition, morphology and microstructure of the films were characterized by ion beam analysis, scanning and transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The optical properties were determined by ellipsometry and spectrophotometry (UV-Vis-NIR, FTIR). The microstructural and morphological characterization shows the formation of a solid solution of AlTiN crystalline nanoparticles embedded in an amorphous Al₂(O, N)₃ matrix. This particular microstructure results in a coating with a high absorption coefficient within the whole wavelength range of interest (0,3 to 25 um) as modeled by spectroscopic ellipsometry. Hence, this single layer absorber shows a solar absorptance, α, of 92% and an emissivity, εRT, of 70%. The addition of an antireflective Al₂O₃ layer and post deposition thermal treatments improved the optical properties of the absorber to better values (α=96% and εRT=60%) than those of Pyromark®. The thermal stability in air of the absorber was firstly analyzed by cyclic heating tests, showing no degradation after 300h of cycles in air at 700ºC. Subsequently, the samples were tested in a solar furnace at 650 °C and 800 ºC for 12 hours at environmental conditions. Therefore, this absorber coating can be a feasible alternative to absorber paints for next generation of concentrated solar power plants operating at high temperature.
[1] I. Heras et al., Sol. Energy Mat. Solar Cells, 176, 81-92 (2018)
[2] R. Escobar-Galindo et al., Sol. Energy Mat. Solar Cells, 185, 183-191 (2018)