Call for Papers

Please contact the symposium organizers with questions.

This symposium follows up on the 2017 symposium on surfaces, coatings and interfaces for concentrating solar power (CSP) applications. The success of the previous symposium encouraged the organizers to broaden the scope to other challenging solar thermal applications. Next-generation CSP is expected to operate at temperatures at or exceeding 600 ºC, exacerbating existing challenges for solar thermal components and applications. This symposium will focus on research and development activities in coating design, surface treatment and processes to improve the performance of key CSP components, e.g., reflectors, receivers, and thermal storage at high temperatures. In addition, the symposium will address challenges in heat transfer media and solar-thermochemical processes such as water- and CO₂-splitting and chemical syntheses.
Many of these applications face complementary challenges, including oxidation, corrosion, environmental and mechanical stability, materials incompatibilities, and thermal stresses. Approaches to overcoming such challenges include new materials development, surface modifications and coatings, new methods of materials characterization at high temperatures, and computational advances. Consequently, this symposium aims at stimulating an effective transfer of expertise between different technological fields.

Topics will include:

• Simulation and modeling of mechanical, thermal and optical properties of emerging solar thermal coating materials.
• State of the art concepts of absorber, selective and antireflective materials for high temperature concentrating solar power applications.
• Surface treatments for anti-soiling and anti-icing effect on CSP components.
• Challenges and mitigation of surface stability in high temperature ( 600 ºC) heat transfer fluids (HTFs) and power cycles.
• Efficient design and manufacturing of corrosion-resistant coatings for CSP components.
• Surface challenges for high temperature solar thermochemistry (water/CO2 splitting, desalination, thermochemical energy storage).
• Effects of surface and interface properties on redox materials functionality.
• Surface modification of advanced manufactured solar thermal materials (additive manufacturing, laser treatment).
• Methods and standards for high-temperature performance, durability and ageing tests of CSP surfaces and coating materials.
• Scaling up concepts: from lab to commercial solar thermal plants.

Invited Speakers:

• Sean Babiniec (Sandia National Laboratories, USA)
• Javier Barriga (IK4-Tekniker, Spain)
• Renkun Chen (University of California, San Diego, USA)
• Clifford K Ho (Sandia National Laboratories, USA)
• Sungho Jin (NanoSD Inc., USA)
• Olivier Raccurt (CEA-LITEN, France)
• Andreas Schüler (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland)
• Judith Vidal (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, USA)

Symposium Organizers