Antireflection treatment of Thickness Sensitive Spectrally Selective (TSSS) paints for thermal solar absorbers

There are several methods to produce solar absorbers, and one cheap alternative is painted absorbers, preferably painted with a spectrally selective paint. The optical properties of Thickness Sensitive Spectrally Selective (TSSS) paints are, however, limited by the thickness of the paint layer. In this study it is shown that the solar absorptance of two commercial TSSS paints can be increased between 0.01 and 0.02 units with an antireflection treatment using a silicon dioxide layer deposited from silica-gel. It was found that the thermal emittance (100 °C) did not change significantly after the treatment.