Tube Collector  Manufacturers, Traders, Suppliers

Tube collectors, more precisely called vacuum tube collectors, are a particularly effective way of converting solar radiation into usable heat. At its heart are thin black tubes that absorb the energy of the sun's rays and are located inside a much larger glass tube. There is a vacuum between the two tubes, which prevents the loss of heat generated from solar energy according to the principle of a thermos flask. This is the reason for the high efficiency and the high temperatures that can be achieved with tube collectors. Since the black tube has a rather small surface inside the glass tube, relatively little radiation reaches it directly. For this reason, the solar radiation is additionally thrown onto the tube with tub-like concave mirrors.The classification of the tube collectors can be based on 2 different criteria. The first is the construction of the mirrors, whereby there are systems in which the concave mirror troughs are connected to the frame of the collector as a separate mirror plate outside the tubes. Other systems, on the other hand, have a mirror inside the vacuum tubes, which consists only of a thin silver layer that turns the glass of the tubes into a semi-permeable mirror. On the other hand, collectors are differentiated according to their heat exchanger. In some tubes, water flows directly through the'black tubes', in others they are so-called heatpipes, which bring the heat to a heat exchanger at its upper end.Vacuum tube collectors are solar collectors used in solar thermal systems, where the heat of solar radiation is harnessed. They consist of an absorber tube coated with a dark material that absorbs heat energy from the sunlight and transfers it to the heat transfer medium. The absorber tube is located in an air-emptying glass tube, the vacuum provides better insulation. Water or a mixture of water and antifreeze is often used as heat transfer medium in a thermal solar system. The thermal energy collected with vacuum tube collectors is mainly used for building technology, for example for heating shower, bath and flushing water and for heating living spaces. The collectors are therefore often installed on the roofs of residential and public buildings.Larger systems are also used in industry, for example process heat of up to 100 degrees Celsius can be generated for chemical or microbiological processes. Often vacuum tube collectors are used in combination with a parabolic trough. The parabolic shaped channel directs the sun's rays onto the vacuum tube in the focal line, thus increasing the area that can be used to collect the heat radiation. Such a system is called a CPC vacuum tube collector, CPC stands for Compound Parabolic Concentrator.