Extracting Optical Parameters of Cu–Mn–Fe Spinel Oxide Nanoparticles for Optimizing Air-Stable, High-Efficiency Solar Selective Coatings

High-temperature Cu–Mn–Fe spinel-oxide nanoparticle solar selective absorber coatings are investigated experimentally and theoretically. A general realistic approach to evaluate absorption coefficient spectra from the optical measurements of the nanoparticle-pigmented coatings is developed by solving the inverse problem of the four-flux-radiative transfer model. The derived absorption properties are utilized to elucidate the direct and indirect bandgap transitions in the visible spectral regime as well as the sub-bandgap absorption in the infrared range. Furthermore, the optical properties of NP materials can be directly applied to optimize the solar selective coating design and analyze thermal degradation mechanisms. The analysis reveals that the Cu–Mn–Fe spinel oxides are semiconductors with an indirect bandgap ranging from 1.7 to 2.1 eV, while iron-free CuMn2O4 is a direct bandgap material with Eg = 1.84 eV. With the same coating thickness and nanoparticle load, the solar absorptance ranks in the order of Mn2O3 < MnFe2O4 < CuFe2O4 < CuFeMnO4 < CuMn2O4. The optimized spray-coated iron-free CuMn2O4 NP-pigmented coating demonstrates a high solar absorptance of 97%, a low emittance of 55%, a high optical-to-thermal energy conversion efficiency of ∼93.5% under 1000× solar concentration at 750 °C, and long-term endurance upon thermal cycling between 750 °C and room temperature in air. The optical parameter analysis approach can be easily extended to other material systems to facilitate the search and optimization of high-temperature nanoparticle-pigmented solar selective coatings.