2. Methodology
A whole test campaign has been designed and performed in the OPAC laboratory at the PSA. All types of
commercially available solar reflectors have been included in the study: second-surface silvered mirrors, firstsurface
aluminum mirrors and first and second-surface polymer mirrors. Regarding the second-surface silvered
reflectors, thin glass, thick glass and laminated glass were tested. The first-surface reflectors studied were anodized
aluminum and coated aluminum mirrors. The polymer mirrors were aluminum reflectors protected by polycarbonate
and methacrylate and silvered thin film, glued on glass substrate.
2.1. Samples
To assure representative results, 3 identical samples were used, except in Polymer#3. In total, 29 samples of 8
different material types from 8 suppliers were exposed to accelerated aging conditions with acid rain and they were
subsequently evaluated. Sample size range is the appropriate for the measurement instruments and for the test
chamber. Samples do not have protected edges because they were cut from bigger mirrors. Table 1 shows the main
features of all the samples included in the testing. It is assumed that protective paints of samples Glass #1 and Glass
#3 are different because they were produced by different manufacturers. However, this information is not available