Hi from Australia!

[sundrumsolar]

Galvanic reaction of Aluminum

PEX is an acceptable material as long as the temperatures on the sundrums never exceeds 180 degrees which I suspect they would not.

I am interested to learn more about your learnings on working with the old Reynolds Aluminum solar collectors. We have taken a number of steps to control galvanic reacitons in SunDrum Systems. This is mostly eliminate as much brass and copper
as possible. We also anodize our aluminimum and use a propylene glycol designed
for use with aluminum that has corrosion inhibitors. It has already been mentioned
that we use oxygen barrier PEX for tubing. Please share.

[Naptown]

I am interested to learn more about your learnings on working with the old Reynolds Aluminum solar collectors. We have taken a number of steps to control galvanic reacitons in SunDrum Systems. This is mostly eliminate as much brass and copper
as possible. We also anodize our aluminimum and use a propylene glycol designed
for use with aluminum that has corrosion inhibitors. It has already been mentioned
that we use oxygen barrier PEX for tubing. Please share.

You will need to use heat exchangers that are stainless. copper in the system will destroy the aluminum. Running Pex between collectors and heat exchanger will dielectrically isolate the the collectors from the rest of the system but how are you connecting the collectors to the pex? I hope not with a brass fitting or barb.
we can continue this chat later my dinner is almost ready and I'm hungry.

[russ]

Stagnation temperatures? Could be above the PEX limit.

[sundrumsolar]

Stagnation temperatures? Could be above the PEX limit.

We have solved stagnation by design. However in desert environments a special skew needs to be used. This greatly helps inprove our systems reliability over traditional solar thermal.

[russ]

We have solved stagnation by design. However in desert environments a special skew needs to be used. This greatly helps inprove our systems reliability over traditional solar thermal.

That statement makes no sense.

The entire idea makes no sense whatsoever - the cooling amount is minimal and the heat gain in the water will be to little to bother with.

It simply complicates the system for too little gain.

This is not new - been around for years and no one has manged to make it work to any real advantage yet.

[russ]

If some kind of proof is offered such as certification by the SRCC or other national organization that is an independent agency for the purpose all would be interested in seeing it.

For a company to make a statement about how wonderful their product is has no meaning at all.

[Naptown]

Sundrum
How about posting the technical specifications on your system with information such as an SRCC rating, system schematic with parts and materials listed etc. I see you have an SRCC rating but the rating is for category A only as the collectors are unglazed.

The opening statement on your products page of tripling the efficiency of PV collectors is a stretch to say the least.

[sundrumsolar]

Sundrum
How about posting the technical specifications on your system with information such as an SRCC rating, system schematic with parts and materials listed etc. I see you have an SRCC rating but the rating is for category A only as the collectors are unglazed.

The opening statement on your products page of tripling the efficiency of PV collectors is a stretch to say the least.

Lets stay with the original thread for a moment. Your responce on Reynolds collectors leads me to believe that they allowed gavanic components to directly touch the aluminum collectors? Did they use a heat transfer fluid with AL anti-corrosive properties?

With regards to techincal specification. We all understand the importance of IP and protecting it when you have something new and unique. The comments to this blog validate we have something new and unique.

Our collectors are SRCC certified, we have OG100 and OG300 certifications in addition to others. This techincal information is publicly available. If you take the OG100 efficiency intercept and know that we are underneath the PV panel, consuming no additional area, add the electrical efficiency and a third party validation of our claims is provided. In fact we are using some of the slope to pad our claim.

Come by the Mall for this years Solar Decathalon. Team Massachusetts is powering their entries thermal demand with SunDrum Collectors.

[russ]

I see nothing on the OG100 data sheet showing the unit being used in conjunction (behind) a PV panel? The OG100 data sheet shows the unit as not yet having completed testing and estimates the numbers should improve.

The panel shown on the SRCC site is the SunDrum SDM 100 COLLECTOR TYPE: Unglazed Flat-Plate
The numbers SRCC shows are not collected from behind a PV panel I do not believe.

No one is asking for any proprietary information - just specifications which you have to have to sell to anyone.

Russ

[Naptown]

Lets stay with the original thread for a moment. Your responce on Reynolds collectors leads me to believe that they allowed gavanic components to directly touch the aluminum collectors? Did they use a heat transfer fluid with AL anti-corrosive properties?

Absolutely not all aluminum parts were dielectrically isolated and we did use Prestone II
Antifreeze with deionized water as the transfer fluid

With regards to techincal specification. We all understand the importance of IP and protecting it when you have something new and unique. The comments to this blog validate we have something new and unique.

Well how]about the installation instructions then?

Our collectors are SRCC certified, we have OG100 and OG300 certifications in addition to others. This techincal information is publicly available. If you take the OG100 efficiency intercept and know that we are underneath the PV panel, consuming no additional area, add the electrical efficiency and a third party validation of our claims is provided. In fact we are using some of the slope to pad our claim.

Come by the Mall for this years Solar Decathalon. Team Massachusetts is powering their entries thermal demand with SunDrum Collectors.

Read the red parts above