THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF A MODIFIED COMPOUND PARABOLIC CONCENTRATING SOLAR COLLECTOR USING OIL-BASED NANOFLUIDS

Thermal oils, generally used as heat transfer fluids (HTFs) in the medium temperature compound parabolic concentrating (CPC) collectors, bear weak thermal properties that negatively affect their performance thereby creating a major hurdle in the successful application at industrial scale. The emergence of nanofluids has shown promising results in improving the output of non-concentrating solar collectors. However, the performance of CPC collectors employing oil-based nanofluids is rarely studied. Therefore, this research was aimed to investigate the thermal effectiveness of oil-based nanofluids on the performance of a modified CPC collector. The main objectives were to develop and evaluate optical behavior of a modified CPC collector under different configurations, examine its thermal performance theoretically and experimentally using oil-based nanofluids. A multiphase methodology was devised to accomplish the outlined objectives.