Empirical investigation of a photovoltaic-thermal system with phase change materials and aluminum shavings porous media

Mohammad Amin Vaziri Rad, Alibakhsh Kasaeian, Soroush Mousavi, Fatemeh Rajaee and Amir Kouravand

Renewable Energy, 2021, vol. 167, issue C, 662-675

Abstract: Since a high photovoltaic panel (PV) temperature impacts the electrical output power, especially in tropical countries, the use of some cooling methods such as fluid flows, phase change materials (PCMs), and porous media has been suggested as an attractive option. In this study, these methods are integrated experimentally; a novel low-cost porous medium is developed using aluminum shavings, considered as waste materials in some industries, to increase the thermal conductivity of the phase change material. Then, the combination of this porous medium with salt hydrate is added to the water-based photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) system; the electrical, thermal, and exergy efficiencies of the units are measured in July and December. The results of this research show that the photovoltaic-thermal unit, integrated with phase change material and porous medium, would have a high cooling performance by reducing the average temperature of the photovoltaic panel. The 24 °C reduction would augment the electrical efficiency by 2.5%, compared to solo PV, in the warm month. Also, it is found that, by using a porous medium, the melting time of the phase change material decreases by about 19%–25%. This method yields a maximum of 4.34% exergy efficiency improvement, compared to the single photovoltaic unit.

Keywords: Photovoltaic thermal; Porous media; Phase change material; Aluminum shaving (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148120318875
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:167:y:2021:i:c:p:662-675

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2020.11.135

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().