Xin Wang

Graduation Semester and Year

2009

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering

Department

Materials Science and Engineering

First Advisor

Michael Jin

Abstract

The goal of this research is to fabricate solar selective reflector with suitable optical properties and high thermal and chemical stability for using in the photovoltaic thermal window. While the reflector allows some transmittance in visible spectrum, the mid/far infrared light needs to be reflected back into the window minimizing the IR radiation loss. Nickel/alumina composite was proposed as the solar selective reflector. This thesis consists of two parts - one part concerning the fabrication and characterization of solar selective reflector and another dealing with an optical modeling to simulate the optical properties of the solar selective reflector. The alumina serves as a template for the formation of the oblated nickel nanoparticles, ca. 300nm in diameter with its length ranging from 109 to 245 nm. The Maxwell-Garnett theory was used to simulate the transmittance curve. The calculated curve shows fairly good agreement with the experiment data by considering the hole porosity due to some missing Ni particles in the composite and by defining an effective volume fraction from the experiment data.

Disciplines

Engineering | Materials Science and Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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