Nanofluids in solar collectors

[8] Typical solar collectors use a black-surface absorber to collect the sun's heat energy which is then transferred to a fluid running in tubes embedded within.

Nanoparticle materials including aluminium,[9] copper,[10] carbon nanotubes[11] and carbon-nanohorns have been added to different base fluids and characterized in terms of their performance for improving heat transfer efficiency.

The efficiency of a solar thermal system is reliant on several energy conversion steps, which are in turn governed by the effectiveness of the heat transfer processes.

Keblinski et al.[14] had named four main possible mechanisms for the anomalous increase in nanofluids heat transfer which are : Due to Brownian motion particles randomly move through the liquid.

So, it is clear that we can improve conventional collector simply by adding trace amounts of nano-particles.

On reaching the receiver the solar radiations transfer energy to the nanofluid via scattering and absorption.