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Evaluation of Dust Deposition on Parabolic Trough Collectors in the Visible and Infrared Spectrum

Solar energy is mostly harnessed in arid areas where a high concentration of atmospheric dust represents a major environmental degradation factor. Gravitationally settled particles and other solid particles on the surface of the photovoltaic panels or thermal collectors greatly reduce the absorbed s...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Usamentiaga, Rubén, Fernández, Alberto, Carús, Juan Luis
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7662668/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33147781
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20216249
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author Usamentiaga, Rubén
Fernández, Alberto
Carús, Juan Luis
author_facet Usamentiaga, Rubén
Fernández, Alberto
Carús, Juan Luis
author_sort Usamentiaga, Rubén
collection PubMed
description Solar energy is mostly harnessed in arid areas where a high concentration of atmospheric dust represents a major environmental degradation factor. Gravitationally settled particles and other solid particles on the surface of the photovoltaic panels or thermal collectors greatly reduce the absorbed solar energy. Therefore, frequent cleaning schedules are required, consuming high quantities of water in regions where water precipitation is rare. The efficiency of this cleaning maintenance is greatly improved when methods to estimate the degree of cleanness are introduced. This work focuses on the need for better detecting the degradation created by dust deposition, considering experimental data based on different air pollutants, and analyzing the resulting thermal and visible signatures under different operating environments. Experiments are performed using six different types of pollutants applied to the surface of parabolic trough collectors while varying the pollutant density. The resulting reflectivity in the visible and infrared spectrum is calculated and compared. Results indicate that the pollutants can be distinguished, although the reflectivity greatly depends on the combination of the particle size of the pollutant and the applied amount, with greater impact from pollutants with small particles.
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spelling pubmed-76626682020-11-14 Evaluation of Dust Deposition on Parabolic Trough Collectors in the Visible and Infrared Spectrum Usamentiaga, Rubén Fernández, Alberto Carús, Juan Luis Sensors (Basel) Article Solar energy is mostly harnessed in arid areas where a high concentration of atmospheric dust represents a major environmental degradation factor. Gravitationally settled particles and other solid particles on the surface of the photovoltaic panels or thermal collectors greatly reduce the absorbed solar energy. Therefore, frequent cleaning schedules are required, consuming high quantities of water in regions where water precipitation is rare. The efficiency of this cleaning maintenance is greatly improved when methods to estimate the degree of cleanness are introduced. This work focuses on the need for better detecting the degradation created by dust deposition, considering experimental data based on different air pollutants, and analyzing the resulting thermal and visible signatures under different operating environments. Experiments are performed using six different types of pollutants applied to the surface of parabolic trough collectors while varying the pollutant density. The resulting reflectivity in the visible and infrared spectrum is calculated and compared. Results indicate that the pollutants can be distinguished, although the reflectivity greatly depends on the combination of the particle size of the pollutant and the applied amount, with greater impact from pollutants with small particles. MDPI 2020-11-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7662668/ /pubmed/33147781 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20216249 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Usamentiaga, Rubén
Fernández, Alberto
Carús, Juan Luis
Evaluation of Dust Deposition on Parabolic Trough Collectors in the Visible and Infrared Spectrum
title Evaluation of Dust Deposition on Parabolic Trough Collectors in the Visible and Infrared Spectrum
title_full Evaluation of Dust Deposition on Parabolic Trough Collectors in the Visible and Infrared Spectrum
title_fullStr Evaluation of Dust Deposition on Parabolic Trough Collectors in the Visible and Infrared Spectrum
title_full_unstemmed Evaluation of Dust Deposition on Parabolic Trough Collectors in the Visible and Infrared Spectrum
title_short Evaluation of Dust Deposition on Parabolic Trough Collectors in the Visible and Infrared Spectrum
title_sort evaluation of dust deposition on parabolic trough collectors in the visible and infrared spectrum
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7662668/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33147781
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20216249
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