Investigation of Efficiency of Flat Plate Collector Using CuO–H2O Nanofluid

Abstract

AbstractWater resources are exhausting rapidly due to misuse and wastes of water at industrial and household level, giving rise to the problem of the water crisis. Salty and wastewater can be recycled by distillation methods. However, distillation methods require energy input for water purification. Non-renewable energy resources, with skyrocketing prices and exhausting ability, cannot be used to purify salty water and wastewater. Therefore, there is a need for renewable energy resource which is available in a huge amount at a low cost for water purification. Solar energy is an abundantly available energy source which can be harnessed through solar stills with flat plate collector and used for purifying water. In this paper, solar collector was used to observe effect of nanoparticles on its efficiency. For this purpose, the homogenous solution of nanoparticles was prepared in the surfactant sodium dodecyl sulphate solution. The experiment was done at Amity University Rajasthan, Jaipur, India (27.1721° N, 75.9542° E) with 5.56 kWh/m2/day average solar irradiance at 0.1 to 0.4 percentage of CuO. Thermal conductivity values of copper oxide nanoparticles containing nanofluid were higher than distilled water alone. Results revealed that increasing the concentration of copper oxide in base fluid improved the efficiency by 21.45%. Therefore, the conclusion drawn out from study is in favour of using nanoparticles to augment the efficiency of flat plate collector.KeywordsCopper oxide nanoparticlesEfficiencyFlat plate collectorNanofluidsSolar energy