Experimental Investigation On Nanoparticles Suspended Liquid (NSL) As The Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) For Solar Evacuated Tube Collector

Abstract

This study investigates the thermal performance of a solar evacuated tube collector (SETC) using nanoparticles suspended liquid (NSL) as the heat transfer fluid (HTF). The NSL is composed of water with different concentration of TiO2, CuO, Cr2O3, TiO2+CuO+ Cr2O3NSL withaverage size of ~25 nm. The experimental results show that the use of NSL increase the thermal performance of the SETC to be about 2% higher than that of the SETC without NSL. The enhancement in the thermal performance is mainly attributed to the higher thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity of the NSL. In addition, the effects of NSL concentration, flow rate and temperature on the thermal performance of the SETC with NSL were also studied. It was observed that the thermal performance of the SETC with NSL increases with increasing NSL concentration and flow rate but decreases with rise in the temperature. The results of this study can be used to optimize the design of solar evacuated tube collectors using NSL as the HTF for better thermal performance.