Nanofluid Application in Solar Collectors An Experimental Investigation

Parabolic trough solar concentrating collector system has proficient usage in all solar applications such as power generation, steam, heating of water, air heating etc. Nano fluids are emergent fluid that shows the development in the thermal properties. Nano fluids had made great potential in the field of nanotechnology for the thermal engineers. It deals with investigation into the effects of variation of titanium oxide nanoparticles concentration on the efficiency of a nanofluid based parabolic trough solar collector with the use of high reflective mirror trough. Nanofluids are the mixture of mainly the base fluid with the nanoparticles of the size micro or millimeter and shows characteristic features than that of conservative fluids used. At 110 lph mass flow rate the percentage change in overall thermal efficiency was found to be 42.5% at 0.01% of TiO2 nanoparticles, 59.17% at 0.1% of TiO2 nanoparticles and 62.28% at 0.01% of TiO2 nanoparticles in comparison to the water. At 160 lph mass flow rate the percentage change in overall thermal efficiency was found to be 26.47%, 41.06% and 66.37% at 0.01%, 0.1% and 0.15% of TiO2 nanoparticles, respectively in comparison to the water.