PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT OF NANO-ADDITIVES IN A FLAT-PLATE SOLAR COLLECTOR INTEGRATED WITH THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS

One of the addressed setbacks in solar water heating is the intermittent nature of solar
energy. The objective of this research is to develop and investigates the performance
enhancement of flat-plate solar collector (FPSC) integrated with thermal energy
storage (TES) and explore the additional enhancement by nano-additive to the TES
material and to the heat transfer fluid, i.e., the working fluid. The investigations were
carried out by experimental and TRNSYS simulation analysis. For the experimental
part, a prototype setup of integrated flat plate solar collector-TES was designed,
fabricated and subjected to a measurement program at various operational modes.