Istrazivanja i projektovanja za privreduJournal of Applied Engineering Science

INVESTIGATION OF GRANULAR NATURAL STONE MATERIALS AS PHOTOTHERMAL ABSORBERS FOR SUSTAINABLE AND ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY ENERGY HARVESTing


DOI: 10.5937/jaes0-47834 
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY 4.0
Creative Commons License

Volume 22 article 1175 pages: 147-162

Alfan Sarifudin*
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia

Indri Yaningsih*
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia

Budi Kristiawan
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia

Aditya Wibawa
Research Center for Geological Resources, National Research and Innovation Agency, Bandung, Indonesia

Takahiko Miyazaki
Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

Kyaw Thu
Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

Arridina Susan Silitonga
Centre for Technology in Water and Wastewater, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politeknik Negeri Medan, Medan, Indonesia

Hwai Chyuan Ong
Department of Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology, Sunway University, Selangor, Malaysia; School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

The development of cost-effective and environmentally friendly solar thermal technologies that deliver high performance poses several challenges, where the collector and absorber components play a pivotal role. This research addresses these issues by investigating enhanced temperature generation using a 30 cm × 30 cm Fresnel lens collector under solar illumination from a xenon lamp. Natural stone materials (andesite, coal, and pumice), characterized by granular structures with an average diameter of 1.68–2.00 mm, were selected because of their abundance and eco-friendliness. This research is focused on evaluating the effect of Fresnel lens on temperature generation performance. Two types of temperature generation tests were carried out: wet tests (where the natural stone materials were immersed in distilled water) and dry tests (where the natural stone materials were used in dry conditions). The morphologies of the natural stone materials were examined using an optical microscope and scanning electron microscope. Furthermore, the optical properties of the natural stone materials were analyzed using an ultraviolet–visible (UV–VIS) spectrophotometer. The findings revealed that there were significant improvements in the photothermal absorber performance with the use of a Fresnel lens in dry tests, where the highest temperature was achieved for coal (103.25 °C), followed by andesite (89.00 °C) and pumice (73.00 °C). The impurities varied between the materials, where the impurities were most dominant for pumice while coal was more uniform. Further examination using scanning electron microscope showed that all materials had light-trapping structures in the form of rough surfaces, pores, and crack gaps. Andesite was dominated by rough surfaces, while coal and pumice were dominated by crack gaps and pores, respectively. However, based on the UV–VIS spectrophotometric results, there were no correlations between the optical properties (absorbance, reflectance, and transmittance) and temperature achieved by the photothermal absorber materials. This research demonstrates the potential of using natural stone materials as photothermal absorbers in combination with a Fresnel lens collector for low-to-medium temperature solar thermal applications.

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This research was funded by Universitas Sebelas Maret under funding scheme Kolaborasi Internasional (KI-UNS) with contract/grant number 228/UN27.22/PT.01.03/2023. The grant is gratefully acknowledged by authors.

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