Spectral-spatial design and coupling analysis of the parabolic trough receiver

Abstract The parabolic trough system is one of the main technological routes to achieve high-temperature solar thermal conversion. The parabolic trough system is a mature technology and can be easily coupled with distributed systems. However, the parabolic trough receiver, which is a key component of the parabolic trough system, suffer from enormous radiation heat loss at high temperature. An analytical model based on spectral-spatial coupling distributed parameters is developed. Analytical results reveal that >40% surface area of the absorber is negative thermal-flux region and exposes the widely long-term thermal performance weakness in circumferentially uniform receiver design. A local optimal cutoff wavelength is reported. Results show that the exists asymmetrical design of the receiver can reduce radiation heat loss by approximately 41.0% and improve photothermal efficiency by 10.2–42.0% as solar irradiation varies from 1000 W/m2 to 200 W/m2 at 600 °C. The asymmetric design may be a promising choice for optimization of the receiver due to the strong heterogeneity of the solar flux distribution at high temperature. The discovery of negative thermal-flux region and local optimal cutoff wavelength also leads to the optimization of other concentrated solar technologies for improving photothermal performance.