Exergy and energy analysis of wavy tubes photovoltaic-thermal systems using microencapsulated PCM nano-slurry coolant fluid

By Mehdi Eisapour, Amir Hossein Eisapour, Mohammad Javad Hosseini, Pouyan Talebizadehsardari. 2020

154 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract To develop a more efficient water-cooled photovoltaic-thermal system, energy and exergy analysis of a photovoltaic-thermal system with wavy tubes are investigated numerically using different coolant fluids. A comparison between the straight tube and wavy tubes is conducted for various wavelengths and wave amplitudes. The geometrical parameters of the wavy tubes as well as the velocity of the coolant fluid are examined. Besides, the consequences of coolant fluid including water, Ag/water nanofluid, microencapsulated phase change material slurry, and also a new type of cooling fluid called microencapsulated phase change material nano-slurry are studied. The results show that the electrical, thermal, and exergy efficiencies of the photovoltaic-thermal module enhance by using the wavy tubes compared with the corresponding straight tubes. By declining wavelength in a constant wavelength/amplitude, the heat absorbed by the heat transfer fluid raises. For the best configuration, the primary and exergy efficiencies of the module increase by 6.06% and 4.25%, respectively, for the wavy tubes system compared with those for the straight unit. Furthermore, in both configurations, by increasing the inlet velocity, the overall performance of the photovoltaic-thermal module increases due to a higher heat transfer rate. The results also reveal that among different types of cooling fluids, the microencapsulated phase change material nano-slurry has higher performance in terms of both energy and exergy efficiencies due to having higher thermal conductivity and heat capacity. By employing the wavy tube and the novel proposed coolant fluid, the primary and exergy efficiencies increase in comparison with a typical photovoltaic-thermal module.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5ee27721158b3ecb36374c81fa2027e1939cae28

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Biomedical Engineering

  1. Motong Li
  2. Zhibin Yu
  3. Bing-yang Cao

In Mechanical Engineering

  1. Motong Li
  2. Zhibin Yu
  3. Bing-yang Cao

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

  1. Motong Li
  2. Zhibin Yu
  3. Bing-yang Cao

Citations in the corpus