Modelling and performances assessment of a nanofluids-based PV/T hybrid collector

Abstract

An efficient option to transform solar radiation into electrical and heat energies simultaneously is the utilization of hybrid photovoltaic thermal solar collectors (PV/T). A temperature decrease in the photovoltaic cells in the PV/T manifold can be achieved using nanofluids. In the present work, a finite difference numerical model of nanofluid-based PV/T collectors, which fits the literature’s experimental results, is developed to evaluate the electrical and thermal outputs. Two different analyses have been performed: in the first group. silver, copper, and iron nanoparticles are dispersed in water, while in the second group, ethylene glycol (EG) and thermal oil (THO) are used as base fluids, where nanoparticles of silver are dispersed. To evaluate how the nanofluid’s volume fraction and the mass flow rate affect the PV/T thermal and electrical outputs, further analyses have been carried out. The results deduced that dispersing a 2% volume fraction of silver, copper, and iron nanoparticles in water allows for achieving an increase in thermal power and electrical power in comparison with pure water. The thermal and electrical outputs of a PV/T collector using a mixture of ethylene glycol (EG), or thermal oil (THO), as base fluid with silver nanoparticles, 87.93 and 60.02 W for silver/EG, and 55.05 and 59.02 W for silver/THO, which are lesser than 206.5 and 63.63 W achieved with the couple silver/water. Finally, silver/water with a 2.0% of volume fraction and mass flow rate of 3.0 × 10–3 kg/s resulted in the most effective mixture of nanofluid.