Numerical Investigation Of Solar Parabolic Trough Collector Combined With Storage Tank Using Nanofluids In Tunisia

Sunshine energy is a green and a renewable source for the sustainable development of the society worldwide. It can be converted to useful heat using solar thermal collector. Nowadays, solar parabolic trough collector (PTC) is considered as an excellent alternative among solar concentrators. In the current study, a transient numerical analysis is carried out to investigate the performance of Solar-PTC integrated with storage tank using various nanofluids as heat transfer fluids in southern Tunisia climate. The effects of weather data, storage tank volume and adding nanoparticles as alumina (Al2O3) and copper (Cu) into pure thermal oil (Therminol-VP1) are taken into account on the modeling of the system. The numerical results were validated with experimental data reported in the literature and a good agreement was obtained proving that the mathematical model used in the present study is feasible and reliable. We found that the emerging of Cu particles in the Therminol-VP1 showed a higher peak temperature value even at low mass fraction when compared to the %Al2O3-VP1.