Tantalum carbide, as a Ultra-High Temperature Ceramic, is known to be characterized by intrinsic spectral selectivity, which makes it attractive for novel high-temperature thermal solar absorbers. However, a weakness point of TaC is the solar absorbance, which, in absence of any treatment, is usually lower than that of other materials currently under development for solar absorber applications....

Porous ceramic materials are currently used as volumetric sunlight absorbers in concentrating solar power systems. As the efficiency of thermodynamic cycles rapidly increases with the operating temperature, the favorable characteristics of so-called ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) can be successfully exploited in novel solar absorbers. The present work reports, for the first time to the...

Kesterite Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) semiconductor has been demonstrated to be a promising alternative absorber in thin film solar cell in virtue of its earth-abundant, non-toxic element, suitable optical and electrical properties. Herein, a low-cost and non-toxic method that based on the thermal decomposition and reaction of metal-thiourea-oxygen sol-gel complexes to synthesize CZTS thin film was develo...

Concentrating solar collectors systems and especially the mini Parabolic solar reflecting systems have been one of the main research topics due to their ability for integration into the building structure. In the present work the mini parabolic collector was considered in the East West orientation with such a slope so that the suns vector impinging normal to the parabola during the day. The beh...

Solar cells consisting of an extremely thin In2S3/CuInS2 buffer/absorber layer uniformly covering planar ZnO were prepared entirely by chemical spray pyrolysis. Au nanoparticles (Au-NPs) were formed via thermal decomposition of a gold(III) chloride trihydrate (HAuCl4·3H2O) precursor by spraying 2 mmol/L of the aqueous precursor solution onto a substrate held at 260 °C. Current-voltage scans and...

As the fossil fuels are depleting continuously, we know that solar energy harvesting is a significant potential area for new research dimensions. Sun provides us about 1.9 x 10 8 TWh/yr on the land, of which 1.3 x 10 5 TWh]/yr energy is used. In order to make much use of solar energy on the earth, solar energy harvesting into more usable form (e.g. heat or electricity) by using solar energy col...