Abstract: CoCuMnOx ceramic films were deposited onto stainless steel (SS) substrates by a convenient and innovative aqueous solution chemical method. With this approach, the ubiquitous, inexpensive, and nontoxic water acting as a green solvent was employed to dissolve metal salts, chelating agent, and wetting agent, all of which are low-cost and available commercially. The obtained aqueous solution precursor, showed long-term stability and reproducibility, and could be utilized to prepare CoCuMnOx ceramic films for solar absorber applications. X-ray diffraction (XRD) peaks of the ceramic thin film that was annealed at 450 degrees C for 1 h corresponded to that of crystalline CoCuMnOx in the JCPDS database. Then, the influence of deposition parameters such as annealing temperature and withdrawal speed on chemical ingredients, film thickness, surface features, and optical properties of the ceramic films was investigated in detail. The result indicated that CoCuMnOx ceramic films exhibited a good spectral selectivity, which was obtained at a 500 degrees C annealing temperature with different withdrawal speeds. Subjected to an accelerated thermal stability test at 246 degrees C, the prepared ceramic films showed excellent thermally stability and performance criterion (PC) values below 0.05.

KeyWords Plus:OPTICAL-PROPERTIES; SOLAR ABSORBERS; COATINGS

Published in RSC ADVANCES, 6 (90):87584-87592; 10.1039/c6ra18205d 2016