PROMES-CNRS — Procédés, Matériaux et Énergie Solaire

Snapshot

Why it matters internationally

PROMES is globally important because it measures radiative properties in the harsh regime of concentrated fluxes and high temperature, where emissivity is essential for obtaining true temperature and for modeling solar-thermal systems realistically. Its DISCO apparatus is explicitly devoted to determining true temperature, reflectivity, and emissivity at high temperature, and its thermal-radiation-metrology pages emphasize calibration and pyrometric methods for real in-situ conditions. PROMES is a key bridge between metrology, solar-thermal engineering, and advanced high-temperature materials.

Scope of activity

Relevant units and activities

• Thermal-radiation metrology in the context of solar furnaces and extreme radiant environments.
• Solar-energy materials research with emissivity and reflectivity as central variables.
• Pyroreflectometric methods adapted to in-situ solar conditions.

Named instrument

• DISCO — an original experimental setup for determining true temperature, reflectivity, and emissivity at high temperature, up to about 1500 °C.

Radiative properties measured

Spectral and total emissivity · reflectivity · true temperature under concentrated flux · thermo-optical properties at high temperature.

Capability envelope

• Temperature: up to ~1500 °C on the DISCO platform.
• Methodology: pyroreflectometry; pyrometry adapted to in-situ solar conditions; handling of parasitic reflections and nontrivial geometries under high concentrated fluxes.

Application domains

Solar-energy materials · solar receivers and advanced ceramics · concentrated-solar thermal systems · pyrometry where classical assumptions fail.

IR-EMPOWER contributions

• Christophe Escape — measurement of thermo-optical properties.

Why PROMES is distinctive

PROMES exemplifies a particularly advanced branch of the field: emissivity determination in settings where optical heating, parasitic reflections, high concentrated fluxes, and nontrivial geometry make naive pyrometry unreliable. In such environments, knowing emissivity is not an academic luxury — it is the condition for measuring temperature correctly and for modeling solar-thermal systems realistically. The IR-EMPOWER program identifies PROMES as a speaker on “measurement of thermo-optical properties,” and its research record includes pyroreflectometric methods and high- temperature emissivity work on advanced ceramics and solar-receiver materials.

External sources

• Solar reactors and enclosures — PROMES