Quality Control for Optical Properties of Solar Absorber Surfaces
Abstract
One of the most important features of solar absorbers is the optical properties of the surface acting as the interface to the solar irradiation and the ambient environment. A lot of effort was spent in the last decades for developing coatings with optimized solar absorptance and thermal emittance and reasonable durability for a collector lifetime of more than 25 years. The quality of the coating is very important for the efficiency of the collector. Therefore a high level of quality has to be guaranteed during production and quality control is needed during or after production of the absorber coatings and before manufacturing the collectors.