Study Effect of Nanofluids on the Performance Enhancement of PV/T Collector

Compared to the photovoltaic (PV) module, which only produces electricity, the photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system presents as a promising technology capable of simultaneously producing electrical and thermal energy. In addition, this technology considerably improves the photovoltaic efficiency by cooling the PV cells sensitive to the increase in temperature. This paper investigates the impact of various nanofluids on improving the performance of PV/T systems. Three different fluids, pure water, Al2O3/water, and Cu/water are studied as a coolant to reduce the temperature of the PV panel. The performances of the nanofluid-based PV/T system were simulated using a numerical model based on the energy balance equation, developed in MATLAB software. By analyzing the simulation results, it is observed that the use of Al2O3/water and Cu/water nanofluids improves the results of the PV/T system in terms of electrical and thermal efficiency compared to the pure water-based PV/T system. In particular, dispersing a 2% volume fraction of copper and alumina nanoparticles in water helps to increase the thermal and electrical efficiency of the PV/T by 26 and 1.24% for Cu/water and 10.33 and 0.99% for Al2O3/water, respectively.