Evaluation of photovoltaic panels using different nano phase change material and a concise comparison: An experimental study

The cooling techniques of photovoltaic (PV) panels captured special attention due to positive impact on PV panels efficiency as continuous elevation of temperature degraded its performance. A number of studies have suggested the better prospects of air, water and phase change material (PCM) for thermal management of PV modules. The present work studies three different nanoparticle-based nano-PCMs for acceleration in performance of PV panel in terms of temperature reduction and increment of electrical efficiency. The experimental methodology was tested in the outdoor conditions of Taxila, Pakistan during winter seasons by using different concentrations (0.25 wt% and 0.5 wt%) of multiwall carbon nanotubes nanoparticles, graphene nanoplatelets and magnesium oxide nanoparticles in phase change material (PT-58). The topmost performance of PV panel is found at 0.5 wt% nanomaterial concentration in graphene nanoplatelets/PT-58 nano-PCM. The experimental results indicate that maximum temperature reduction is observed to be 9.94 °C, 6.53 °C for PV/nano-PCM at 0.5 wt% of graphene nanoplatelets/PT-58 nano-PCM and 0.25 wt% of graphene nanoplatelets/PT-58 nano-PCM respectively while it was 5.01 °C for PV/PCM with highest observation in electrical efficiency of 12.10%, 11.97% and 11.74% respectively as compared to conventional PV panel. The maximum percentage increase of electrical power was 33.07% in case of GNPs/PT-58 nano-PCM at 0.5 wt% of nanomaterial in base PCM. The graphene nanoplatelets based nano-PCM exhibited best results in terms of temperature reduction as well as electrical efficiency and higher concentration of nanoparticles indicated good results compared to low concentration in nano-PCM.