Performance investigation of nanocomposite based solar water heater

Abstract

Of late researchers are putting stress on the active utilisation of solar energy to promote the use of renewable energy. Solar water heating is considered as an environmental friendly technique to harness the solar energy for heating application. In this research, the effects of using Phase Change Materials (PCM) doped CuO nanocomposite as storage medium on the performance of a solar water heater have been experimentally investigated. By varying the wt% of nano CuO, the gap between the absorber plate and the glazing, the effect on the outlet temperature is examined. The maximum temperature of outlet water has been recorded as 60.1 °C using nano CuO-PCM composite over base PCM under similar conditions. As the mass fraction/wt% of nano CuO increases in PCM, the thermal conductivity, heat flow and thermal efficiency increases. It has been found that better results have been achieved while using 1.00 wt% CuO-PCM nanocomposite. The thermal conductivity of pure wax is found to be about 0.21 W/mK while 1.00 wt% PCM CuO- nanocomposite has thermal conductivity of 0.36 W/mK. It is noticed that there is an appreciable increment in the efficiency of solar water heater under the variation of three observed parameters i.e. time, temperature and solar intensity.