The AlN has high decomposition temperature (>2400°C) which is an important property as the
ceramic component in a cermet for high temperature solar selective coatings. Initial experimental results suggest that these SS–AlN cermet solar coatings should be stable at 330–400°C in vacuum. Currently Beijing TurboSun Co. has mass-produced these advanced solar collector tubes incorporating sputtered SS–AlN cermet solar selective coatings. These SS–AlN cermet tubes would have widespread application for solar hot water and steam heaters. They could be used for a smallscale demonstration test unit at high-temperature for solar thermal electricity applications. This technology for production of the SS–AlN cermet solar collector tubes is also suitable for several other metals and alloys which have low chemical reactivity with nitrogen. Our initial results show that the solar selective coatings incorporating dc sputtered tungsten and dc reactively sputtered aluminium nitride components in a cermet should be stable at 500°C in vacuum (Zhang, 1997). Using this commercialscale coater, it would be possible to produce solar collector tubes for solar thermal electricity applications. They would replace the Mo–Al2O3 cermet solar collector tubes giving superior solar performance at a much lower cost. They will also open up the possibility for the design of a high-temperature solar collector
system for solar thermal electricity generation with superior performance to that previously considered.