Reduced Graphene Oxide–Based Spectrally Selective Absorber with an Extremely Low Thermal Emittance and High Solar Absorptance
Qihua Liao, Panpan Zhang, Houze Yao, Huhu Cheng, Chun Li, Liangti Qu
Abstract
Abstract Carbon‐based black materials exhibit strong solar absorptance (α solar >0.90), which play key roles in transforming solar energy into available power for solar‐thermal, thermophotovoltaic, thermoelectric, and many other systems. However, because of high thermal emittance (>95%), these carbon‐based materials always cause huge energy loss that hinders the solar‐thermal conversion efficiency tremendously. In this study, a reduced graphene oxide–based spectrally selective absorber (rGO‐SSA) is demonstrated, which possesses a recorded low thermal emittance (≈4%) and high solar absorptance (α solar ≈ 0.92) by easily regulating the reduction level of inner 2D graphene sheets. Compared to conventional carbon‐based black materials, thermal emittance of this rGO‐SSA is largely reduced by ≈95.8% and the cutoff wavelength of rGO‐SSA is broadband‐tunable that can range from 1.1 to 3.2 µm. More importantly, this simply sol‐gel coated rGO‐SSA has high temperature tolerance at 800 °C for 96 h that is hardly achieved by other cermet‐based or photonic‐based SSAs. Based on this rGO‐SSA, ultrafast solar steam escape (0.94 mg cm −2 s −1 ) under concentrated solar irradiance is achieved directly. The insight from this study will provide a new strategy for constructing thermally stable carbon‐based SSAs and greatly facilitate the solar‐thermal practical significance.