Thermal performance of heat pipe evacuated tube solar collector integrated with different types of phase change materials at various location

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental investigation of a new method of phase change materials (PCMs) integration in one or both the evacuated tube (ET) and two separated tanks adjacent to the water tank of heat pipe evacuated tube solar water heater collector (HP/ETC). In this method, the evacuated tube was filled with medical paraffin wax as thermal heat storage, while the two separated tanks were filled with paraffin wax (grade-A). Therefore, owing to the thermal isolation of the evacuated tube and PCM storage tanks, heat is efficiently accumulated and stored for a longer time. The advantage of this new method is that improved overall solar water heater performance by delayed heat release, thereby supplying hot water for a long time at high demand or when low solar intensity. Four HP/ETSCs with gravity assist heat pipe (GAHP) rigs were used for a comparative study. The first HP/ETC was equipped with PCM in its ET and two PCM storage tanks. The second and third HP/ETCs were integrated with PCM in an ET and two PCM storage tanks, respectively. While the fourth HP/ETC was considered a reference as it was left without PCM. Each heat pipe was filled with a 0.7 filling ratio of pure acetone. The tests are carried out with two different rates of water flow (i.e. 1 and 2L/h). The results demonstrate that the integration of PCM in both the ET and the separated tanks gives an efficiency improvement of 55.7%, While the integration of PCM in the ET led to an increase in the efficiency of 49.9%. Whereas the efficiency has been improved with the integration of PCM in the separated tanks by about 36.5%, compared with PCM-free reference collector.