Thermal Stability of AlCrON-Based Solar Selective Absorbing Coating in Air
WANG Xiaobo1(), WANG Yongzhe2, CHENG Xudong3, JIANG Rong3
1.Department of Mathematics, Jinzhong University, Jinzhong 030619, China 2.Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, China 3.State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technollogy for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
Cite this article:
WANG Xiaobo, WANG Yongzhe, CHENG Xudong, JIANG Rong. Thermal Stability of AlCrON-Based Solar Selective Absorbing Coating in Air. Acta Metall Sin, 2021, 57(3): 327-339.
Metal-dielectric coatings consist of extremely fine metal particles embedded in dielectric matrices are considered promising as materials for high-temperature spectral selective absorption coating applications owing to their excellent thermal stability and integrated optical properties. However, during long periods of annealing under high temperatures, metal particles are prone to agglomerating, coarsening, oxidizing, and diffusing across different layers, resulting in changes in composition and microstructures. Correspondingly the metal-dielectric coatings would experience irreversible degradations in optical properties. Hence, a Cr/AlCrN/AlCrON/AlCrO multilayer solar selective absorbing coating has been designed and deposited on stainless steel by cathode arc ion plating to solve the above mentioned issue. This coating exhibited excellent thermal stability as the absorptance increased to 0.922, whereas, the emittance decreased to 0.114 after annealing at 500oC for 1000 h in air. Microstructural characterization indicates that the increase in absorptance is attributed the formation of small amounts of AlN, CrN, and Cr2N nanocrystallites in the amorphous matrices of AlCrN and AlCrON, which can effectively scatter the incident light into a broadband wavelength spectrum by increasing the optical path length in the absorbing layers, resulting in a pronounced enhancement in the absorptivity. A handful of Cr2O3 and Al2O3 nanograins are embedded in the amorphous AlCrO antireflection layer, which can effectively reflect solar infrared radiation and thermal emittance from the substrate, resulting in relatively low infrared emissivity. Besides, good thermal stability is attributed to the excellent thermal stability of the dielectric amorphous matrices and slow atomic diffusion of nanoparticles, which could effectively slow down the inward diffusion of oxygen and avoid the agglomeration of nanoparticles. However, during high-temperature annealing, aluminum atoms in the nanoparticles appear to agglomerate on the surface. These aluminum atoms would oxidize in air and form a layer of Al2O3 covering these nanoparticles, preventing agglomeration and coarsening of nanoparticles.
Table 1 Deposition parameters of the AlCrON-based solar selective absorbing coatings
Fig.1 Reflectance spectra of the AlCrON-based solar selective absorbing coatings after annealed at 500oC (a) and 600oC (b) for different time in air
Time
h
500oC
600oC
α
ε
PC
α
ε
PC
0
0.910
0.151
-
0.905
0.115
-
24
0.910
0.144
-0.0035
0.930
0.186
0.0105
72
0.911
0.147
0.0005
0.935
0.181
-0.0075
144
0.913
0.144
-0.0035
0.935
0.180
-0.0005
360
0.917
0.145
0.0085
0.935
0.182
0.0010
Table 2 The calculated absorptances (α) and emittances (ε) of the AlCrON-based solar selective absorbing coatings annealed at different temperatures in air
Fig.2 Reflectance spectra of the AlCrON-based solar selective absorbing coating after annealed at 500oC for 360 h and 1000 h in air
Fig.3 GIXRD spectra of the AlCrON-based solar selective absorbing coating in the states of as-deposited and annealed at 500oC for 1000 h in air
Fig.4 The surface (a, c) and cross-sectional (b, d) morphologies of the AlCrON-based solar selective absorbing coating before (a, b) and after (c, d) annealed at 500oC for 1000 h in air
Position
O
Al
Cr
N
Site 1
20.88
24.52
54.60
-
Site 2
20.86
22.32
56.82
-
Site 3
31.02
32.05
28.83
8.10
Site 4
25.05
31.38
36.70
6.87
Site 5
23.87
24.81
42.04
9.28
Average
26.65
29.41
35.86
8.08
Table 3 EDS results of the droplets on the AlCrON-based solar selective absorbing coating before and after annealed at 500oC for 1000 h in air as denoted in Figs.4a and c
Fig.5 AFM morphologies of the AlCrON-based solar selective absorbing coating before (a) and after (b) annealed at 500oC for 1000 h in air
Fig.6 Bright field TEM images (a, c) and SAED patterns (b, d) of the AlCrON-based solar selective absorbing coating before (a, b) and after (c, d) annealed at 500oC for 1000 h in air
Fig.7 HRTEM image of the AlCrN absorbing layer after annealed at 500oC for 1000 h in air (a), and the corresponding fast Fourier transform (FFT) (b, d, f) and inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) (c, e, g) images of areas I (b, c), II (d, e), and III (f, g) denoted in Fig.7a, respectively (d(110)—spacing of (110) crystal plane)
Fig.8 HRTEM image of the AlCrON absorbing layer after annealed at 500oC for 1000 h in air (a), and the corresponding FFT (b, d, f) and IFFT (c, e, g) images of areas I (b, c), II (d, e), and III (f, g) denoted in Fig.8a, respectively (d(200)—spacing of (200) crystal plane)
Fig.9 HRTEM image of the AlCrO anti-reflection layer after annealed at 500oC for 1000 h in air (a), and the corresponding FFT (b, d) and IFFT (c, e) images of areas I (b, c) and II (d, e) denoted in Fig.9a, respectively (Inset in Fig.9a shows the SAED pattern of the amorphous area, d(400) and d(202)—the spacings of (400) and (202) crystal planes, respectively)
Fig.10 EDS line scan maps of the distribution of elements in the AlCrON-based solar selective absorbing coating before (a) and after (b) annealed at 500oC for 1000 h in air
Fig.11 HAADF-STEM image and Mapping images of the distribution of elements in the AlCrON-based solar selective absorbing coating annealed at 500oC for 1000 h in air
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