Impact of Alumina Nanoparticles Additives on Open -Flow Flat Collector Performance for PV Panel Thermal Control Application

Abstract

Photovoltaic Cells are devices made of semiconductor materials that is used to convert solar energy to electrical energy in the form of a constant current. The efficiency of the photovoltaic cell increases with the increase in solar radiation while its generation efficiency decreases with the increase in Photovoltaic Cell temperature above the standard temperature. Therefore, researchers implement methods to decrease overheating. One of these methods is using PV/T. This paper presents an experimental and numerical study on the performance of the Photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) system by using Nanofluids with a new design (novelty; sphere fins in open flow flat collector) of the water collector. Experiments were carried out in Iraq/Baghdad/University of Technology. Nanofluids Al2O3/water was used at different volume concentration ratio as 1%, 2%, and 3% for cooling of PV panel. The influence of new design of collector and Nano additives on the PV/T performance at various operational parameters have been simulated and evaluated using ANSYS Fluent software to solved the Navier-Stockes and energy equations. Numerical results noticed a decrease in the surface temperature of the collector by 5.1% when using a Nano liquid with a concentration 1% compared to its temperature when using water only, while it decreases by 6.2% and 7.8% when using concentrations 2% and 3%, respectively at flow rate 3.5 l/min. The evaluation result demonstrates that the performance of PV/T system increased, also the Nanoparticles helped to system enhances.