High Porosity materials as volumetric receivers for solar energetics

Abstract

This paper gives a brief overview on the research activities of the Solar Technology Department of the German Aerospace Center on porous materials for Solar Tower Technology. Firstly, a brief introduction to Solar Tower Technology is given. Then, the function of the central component of tower technology, the volumetric air receiver, is described in detail and examples are given as well as experimental results of receiver tests. In a further chapter results of numerical studies are presented, which have been carried out to characterize air flow stability in receiver systems. Approaches presently used to model the interior temperatures of the receiver are described. Later, spin-off applications like particle filters or cooling systems are presented, which are dominated by similar physical phenomena and which can be treated with the same experimental and numerical methods. Finally, information about the Julich Solar Tower is given, the first test power station which makes use of the solar air receiver technology.