Nano Fluid-based Receivers for Increasing Efficiency of Solar Panels

摘要

Due to its renewable and non-polluting nature, solar energy is often used in applications such as electricity generation, thermal heating, and chemical processing. Solar power plants with surface receivers have low overall energy conversion efficiencies due to large emissive losses at high temperatures. Nano fluids have recently found relevance in applications requiring quick and effective heat transfer such as industrial applications, cooling of microchips, microscopic fluidic applications, etc. Recent papers have indicated that the addition of nanoparticles to conventional working fluids (i.e., Nano fluids) can improve heat transfer and solar collection. The normal efficiency of the solar panels being used is recently found out to be 44.7% and by the use of Nano fluids it can be increased by 10-15% and by Plasmonic Nano fluids by 20% also. Dispersing trace amounts of nanoparticles into common base-fluids has a significant impact on the optical as well as thermo physical properties of the base-fluid. This characteristic can be utilized to effectively capture and transport solar radiation.