Testing of components for solar thermal collectors in respect of saline atmospheres

Typical components for solar thermal collectors like glazing materials, absorbers and reflectors are exposed to accelerated weathering tests to analyze their stability and behavior under different climatic conditions including a saline atmosphere. The samples are characterized before, during and after the tests with different methods, including FT-IR spectroscopy and microscopic technologies like AFM microscopy to measure the degradation on different scales and identify the processes taking place. In this article we focus on the solar reflector.