Abstract
Fossil fuels are being depleted, resulting in increasing environmental pollution due to greenhouse gases and, consequently, emerging detrimental environmental problems. Therefore, renewable energy is becoming more important; hence, significant research is in progress to increase efficient uses of solar energy. In this paper, the thermal performance of a conical concentrating system with different heat transfer fluids at varied flow rates was studied. The conical-shaped concentrator reflects the incoming solar radiation onto the absorber surface, which is located at the focal axis, where the collected heat is transported through heating mediums or heat transfer fluids. Distilled water and nanofluids (Al2O3, CuO) were used in this study as the heat transfer fluids and were circulated through the absorber and the heat storage tank in a closed loop by a pump to absorb the solar radiation. The efficiency of the conical concentrating system was measured during solar noon hours under a clear sky. The collector efficiency was analyzed at different flow rates of 2, 4, and 6 L/min. The thermal efficiency, calculated using different heat transfer fluids, were 72.5% for Al2O3, 65% for CuO, and 62.8% for distilled water. Comparing the thermal efficiency at different flow rates, Al2O3 at 6 L/min, CuO at 6 L/min, and distilled water at 4 L/min showed high efficiencies; these results indicate that the Al2O3 nanofluid is the better choice for use as a heating medium for practical applications.
Highlights
Recent progressive development of modern technology continues to increase human energy demand
In this study, we analyzed the thermal efficiency of a conical solar collector using nanofluids and conventional fluids
Considering different heat transfer fluids at variable flow rates, the heat collection efficiency for the Al2O3 nanofluid at flow rates of 2, 4, and 6
Summary
Recent progressive development of modern technology continues to increase human energy demand. Among the new and renewable energies, solar energy is considered as a useful energy source in our daily life as it has no environmental pollution and is available in abundance [3]. For the efficient usage of solar energy, various types of solar concentrating systems have been developed, including parabolic trough concentrator (PTC)-type, compound parabolic concentrator (CPC)-type, dish-type, and conical-type systems [6,7,8]. Compared with flat plate collectors, the conical solar collector has excellent heat collection efficiency, which ranges from 60 to 81% [9]. In recent years, an immense amount of research in the development of state-of-the-art solar energy collectors has been carried out in the context of improving heat collection efficiency [10]. The heat collection performance can be improved by increasing the light collection rate through applying solar tracking technology
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