New American material allows solar collectors to collect heat efficiently

American researchers have recently developed a new type of aerogel material with high cost performance, which can be used in solar collectors to improve the heat collection efficiency and keep its temperature at 220 degrees Celsius.

Previous roof collectors used in homes can only heat water to about 80 degrees Celsius, while collectors using new aerogel materials can maintain the temperature at 220 degrees Celsius, and have broad application prospects in residential heating and food processing. .

The principle of the solar collector is to let more light shine on the black heat-absorbing material and try to avoid heat dissipation. The common practice is to create a vacuum between the black heat-absorbing material and a layer of glass for heat insulation, but the manufacturing cost is relatively high. high.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology research team recently reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society Nano that they developed this new type of aerogel that is almost completely transparent and can transmit 95% of the incident light while ensuring thermal insulation performance. sunlight. Previously, the transmittance of similar materials was only about 70%.

The aerogel material is a foam-like material containing silica particles. Compared with traditional aerogels, the new aerogels have denser pores formed between the particles, which reduces the scattering of light to a greater extent, and can increase the temperature of the collector without focusing the light at a certain point. To 220 degrees Celsius.