Electroplated coatings are the most widely used coatings in the solar collector industry. These coatings are applied to the absorber plate metal using traditional electroplating technology.
Solar therma l systems use panels or tubes, collectors, to capture thermal energy from the sun which is often used for domestic hot water but also has a range of other applications. There are primarily two types of solar thermal panels available on the UK market: flat-plate collectors and concentrating collectors.
There are primarily two types of solar thermal panels available on the UK market: flat-plate collectors and concentrating collectors. Flat-plate collectors, the more common variety, absorb sunlight through dark-colored plates equipped with tubes filled with a heat-transfer fluid.
There are many different types of configurations and collectors. The most commonly used type of collector is the flat plate. These collectors consist of airtight boxes with a glass, or other transparent materia,l cover. There are several designs on the arrangement of the internal tubing of flat plate collectors as shown in Figure 1.
In an area that produces an average level of solar energy, the amount of energy a flat plate solar collector generates equates to around one square foot panel generating one gallon of one day's hot water. The flat plate panel design utilises many different absorber configurations with the main design being the harp configuration.
Traditional collectors, like the Serpatine and Parallel tube examples above, consist of a number of copper tubes, known as risers that are orientated vertically with respect to the collector and placed in thermal contact with a black coloured, metal absorbing plate.