The two main differences of the new collector to be developed compared with state-of-the-art collectors are the absorber material (aluminium directly in contact with the heat transfer fluid) and the production method (generating the channels out of the absorber instead of attaching tubes to the absorber). Moreover, the channel design is more flexible and the channels do not have a circular cross­section. All these aspects lead to some consequences with respect to construction and production and thus to the main project aims:

• Further development and improvement of the FracTherm® computer program

• Adaptation of the roll-bond process for the production of solar absorbers

• Adaptation of a glass batch coating plant for the selective coating of solar absorbers

• Development and testing of appropriate heat transfer fluids

• Development and field testing of solar collectors with the new absorbers