Hybrid Au-ZnO/(water-ethylene glycol)-nanofluid based PV/T spectral beam splitter for efficient photo-harvesting

Sandesh S. Chougule, Bhagyashree A. Gaikwad, A. Inbaoli, Anand Ajayan, Sandip K. Saha and Patrice Estellé

Energy, 2025, vol. 331, issue C

Abstract: Persistent challenges in photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) systems with nanofluids (NFs) arise from colloidal instability, reducing optical absorption and thermal conductivity, which this study addresses through the techno-economic analysis and performance evaluation of a hybrid Au- zinc oxide (ZnO)/(W-EG) nanofluids as a spectral splitter for enhanced photo-harvesting. ZnO nanosheets (NSs) and Au nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesised via a reagent-free electrophoretic method and citrate reduction. The hybrid Au-ZnO/(W-EG) NF, dispersed in a 50:50 W-EG mixture, exhibited a localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) peak at 540 nm and UV absorption at 370 nm, reducing UV transmittance to near zero while maintaining 87–97 % visible transmittance at 5–50 ppm Au-NP concentrations. Stability tests showed the Au-ZnO/(W-EG) NF retained 90 % absorption (A/A0) for over 100 h, outperforming ZnO/(W-EG) (<14 h). In a PV/T system under 1000 W/m2 solar irradiance, the NF at 50 ppm achieved a total efficiency (ηtotal) of 76.24 % (ηth: 64.62 %, ηel: 11.62 %), a 7.42-fold enhancement over 5 ppm (ηtotal: 70.97 %), though ηel decreased by 7.19 % due to reduced transmission. Increasing m from 2 to 6 mL/min raised ηth from 51.12 % to 62.23 % and ηel from 12.01 % to 12.06 % (topt: 10 mm), while larger Au-NP sizes (20–60 nm) reduced ηtotal by 6.5 % at 5 ppm. The merit function (MF) increased from 1.793 to 2.025 with m, but ηex decreased from 15.24 % to 13.48 %, reflecting a trade-off between energy quantity and quality. Overall, this hybrid NF offers superior spectral splitting and stability, positioning it as a promising candidate for advanced photo-harvesting.

Keywords: Au-nanoparticles; Au-ZnO/(W-EG) nanofluids; Localized surface plasmon resonance; Solar PV/T spectral beam splitter; ZnO nanosheets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225026970
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:energy:v:331:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225026970

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.137055

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

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