Contributed by the Solar Energy Division of THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS for publication in the ASME JOURNAL OF SOLAR ENERGY ENGINEERING. Manuscript received by the ASME Solar Division September 2003; final revision March 2004.
A solar particle receiver was developed to heat a process gas to very high temperatures. Its operation is based on seeding the process gas with a very large numerical amount (but small mass fraction, less than 0.5%) of sub-micron radiation absorbing particles (see article by Bertocchi et al. in this issue). The gas-particle mixture is exposed to highly concentrated solar energy in the receiver. Peak temperatures obtained were 2,100 K with Nitrogen, and 2,000 K with air. Radiation to thermal energy conversion efficiencies were estimated to exceed 85%. The receiver accumulated 12 hours of operation at temperatures over 1,700 K without major failure 1.
1Top left: The test set-up, located 30...
