Artículos SCI

The optimum reflection of the solar spectrum at well-defined incident directions as well as its durability in time are, both, fundamental requirements of the optics of thermosolar and photovoltaic energy conversion systems. The stringent high performance needed for these applications implies that, almost exclusively, second face mirrors based on silver are employed for this purpose. Herein, the possibility to develop solar mirrors using other metals, such as copper and aluminum, is theoretically and experimentally analyzed. It is found that reflectors based on these inexpensive metals are capable of reflecting the full solar spectrum with efficiencies comparable to that of silver-based reflectors. The designs herein proposed are based on aperiodic metal-dielectric multilayers whose optimized configuration is chosen employing a code based on a genetic algorithm that allows selecting the best one among 108 tested reflectors. The use of metals with wider spectral absorption bands is compensated by the use of multilayered designs in which metal absorption is almost suppressed, as the analysis of the electric field intensity distribution demonstrates. The feasibility of the proposed mirrors is demonstrated by their actual fabrication by large area deposition techniques amenable for mass production.

Deep penetration of renewable energies into the grid relies on the development of large-scale energy storage technologies using cheap, abundant, and nontoxic materials. Concentrated solar power (CSP) is particularly suitable to massively store thermal energy for dispatchable electricity generation. This is currently accomplished in a few demonstration plants by using molten salts albeit in a not competitive way yet. Process simulation studies indicate that thermochemical energy storage of CSP by means of the calcium looping (CaL) technology would reduce the cost of storage and increase the flexibility of energy supply provided that widely available and cheap CaO precursors with high and stable multicycle activity are used. In this work, we investigate the behavior of calcium rich steel slag at CaL conditions that would expectedly maximize the efficiency of CSP energy storage and power production. When treated with acetic acid, this nontoxic widely abundant waste yields a CaO rich solid with stable conversion near 0.8 over successive carbonation/calcination cycles at these CaL conditions