Model construction and photothermal conversion performance of a miniature non-imaging concentrator for capturing solar radiation in full sunlight

Yuguang Zhao, Caidui Li and Fei Chen

Renewable Energy, 2025, vol. 238, issue C

Abstract: Non-imaging concentrators have been widely applied in the field of solar concentration. However, there are also unfavorable factors such as short effective working time, high production cost of curved reflector, which restrict its wider application in industry and agriculture. Therefore, this paper proposes a miniature non-imaging concentrator (FC-CPC) that can capture solar radiation in full sunlight based on the principle of edge ray. The geometric structure of the FC-CPC was optimized using the VC++ program, resulting in the development of an all-equal multi-section non-imaging concentrator (FM-CPC). On this basis, the optical performance and photothermal conversion performance of FM -CPC during operation were investigated. The results indicate that the average optical efficiency of FM-CPC direct radiation is 50.9 %, and the energy density distribution on the absorber surface is relatively uniform with a low energy density peak. The photothermal conversion system integrated with the FM-CPC shows an increase in collection efficiency as air flow rate increases, reaching a highest average efficiency of 54.1 %.

Keywords: Solar energy; Compound plane concentrator; Photothermal conversion; Efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014812402038X
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:238:y:2025:i:c:s096014812402038x

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2024.121970

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 ().