Computational design for a wide-angle cermet-based solar selective absorber for high temperature applications

•Electromagnetic simulation of radiative properties by characteristic matrix method.•Optimization for multilayered W-SiO2 cermet-based absorber by a Genetic Algorithm.•We propose a successfully high solar performance of solar selective absorber.

The purpose of this study is to computationally design a wide-angle cermet-based solar selective absorber for high temperature applications by using a characteristic matrix method and a genetic algorithm. The present study investigates a solar selective absorber with tungsten-silica (W-SiO2) cermet. Multilayer structures of 1, 2, 3, and 4 layers and a wide range of metal volume fractions are optimized. The predicted radiative properties show good solar performance, i.e., thermal emittances, especially beyond 2 μm, are quite low, in contrast, solar absorptance levels are successfully high with wide angular range, so that solar photons are effectively absorbed and infrared radiative heat loss can be decreased.