Experimental and Modelling development of an optical filter based two-channels hybrid PV/T solar collector using nanofluids

Solar energy is a very potential renewable energy source that is freely available and do not have any adverse effect on the environment. The use of photovoltaic (PV) cells to convert the radiation of sun into electricity has been developed since last few decades. Efficiency of the solar cells is decreased due to the higher surface temperature of the modules. Specifically, in the dry and tropical climate countries the surface temperature become extremely high as a result efficiency of PV cells reduced to below expectation level. The hybrid photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) solar collector is an efficient solar system that utilizes electrical and thermal energy of the incident solar radiation. The overall efficiency of the collector consists of electrical and thermal efficiencies. The overall efficiency depends on different parameters such as the properties of the fluid inside the channels and the incident solar radiation concentration. Using nanofluids as the working fluids is a promising solution due to its high thermal and optical properties. Previous studies showed that using hybrid PV/T solar collectors enhances the utilization of incident solar energy as compared to single system using either PV or thermal collector. Recently, it was found that using some fluids as optical filters for the solar radiation before reaching the PV cells can govern the useful spectrum range for the used PV panel. Changing the design of the hybrid PV/T solar systems to be able to handle more than one nanofluid in order to get the best for optical and thermal properties became a new challenging research topic. The relation between the properties of the nanofluids as well as the solar concentration with the overall efficiency of the hybrid PV/T solar system has not been studied before. The effects of different parameters as: type, volume concentration, thermal and optical properties of nanofluids as well as the solar concentration will be examined with a real system. The primary intention of this study is to find a correlation connecting all the studied parameters with the overall efficiency of the hybrid PV/T solar system in order to reach the ability of optimization of the affecting parameters to attain the maximum possible solar radiation overall conversion efficiency. It is expected that the findings of the study will be useful for the electrical and thermal performance enhancement of hybrid PV/T solar collectors.