Effects of Metal Dopings on CuCr2O4 Pigment for Use in Concentrated Solar Power Solar Selective Coatings

• Published in: ACS applied energy materials 2019-01, Vol.2 (1), p.882-888
• Main Authors: Youn, Yongjoon, Miller, John, Nwe, Kathy, Hwang, Kyung-Jun, Choi, Chulmin, Kim, Youngjin, Jin, Sungho
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2574-0962; 2574-0962
• DOI: 10.1021/acsaem.8b01976

The process of fabricating the solar absorbing spinel-structured CuCr2O4 black oxide pigment doped with different metals (Mn, Ni, Co, Al, Zn, and Sn) was discovered to improve the solar selective property. Manganese stands out as an ideal dopant to copper chromite (CuCr2O4) for highly solar absorptive pigments compared to the other metal dopings. XRD analysis confirmed that various molar ratios of CuCr(2–x)Mn x O4 spinel black oxides were successfully fabricated. Mn-doped black oxide has the highest absorptivity (the lowest band gap value of 1.35 eV) among various metal doped black oxides produced by the hydrothermal synthesis. Manganese is the only dopant that suppresses reflectance peaks exhibited by the copper chromium oxide at 1 and 1.5 μm in the light spectrum, raising the solar absorptivity of the pigment. Different manganese doping compositions are introduced to CuCr(2–x)Mn x O4 where x = 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 1.75, and 1.9. The high selective solar absorptivity appears after 100% (x = 1) manganese doping with solar absorbance 0.9874 and a figure of merit (FOM) value of 0.9284.