Designing and testing low-cost solar water heater using date palm fibers

Abstract

A solar water heater is a device that captures solar energy and transfers it in the form of heat to water. Solar water heaters are very easy to install and use. They can be adapted to many types of installations. The present work deals with the thermal performance and cost evaluation of a low cost solar water heater. The low cost solar collector designed and fabricated use the date palm fibers as insulation material in replacement of glass wool. To prepare the insulation material the date palm waste has been grinded and used without adding anything. Tests carried out in this work follows the international standard ISO 9806. This standard gives the procedure for the thermal characterization of the solar collector. The results showed that our solar collectors provided good behavior and good performances, close to the performance of a commercial solar collector, with a production cost up to three times cheaper.