Laboratory experiment to study the effect of aspect ratio on thermal and purification performance of photocatalytic-Trombe wall

Shuang-Ying Wu, Yi-Min Zhao and Lan Xiao

Energy, 2025, vol. 332, issue C

Abstract: The unique "C" structure of photocatalytic-Trombe wall (PC-TW) channel means that changes in aspect ratio significantly affect its performance. This study constructed an experimental platform in a laboratory to measure the temperature of each component in PC-TW channel, as well as the air temperature and formaldehyde concentration at both the inlet and outlet. The influence of equivalent solar radiation intensity Ieq and aspect ratio w1/H1 on PC-TW performance was investigated. The main findings are as follows: The increase in Ieq contributes to all efficiencies of PC-TW, and the lower the Ieq, the more significant the improvement in all efficiencies. There exists an optimal aspect ratio of w1/H1 = 0.05 allowing the thermal efficiency ηth and total efficiency ηtotal to reach their maximums, while the purification efficiency ηHCHO shows varying trends with Ieq. The impact of w1/H1 on the overall natural convective heat (ha) and mass (hm) transfer coefficients is very different. ha reaches its maximum at w1/H1 of 0.05, while hm generally presents a decreasing trend as w1/H1 increases. Considering the performance and practical application, the recommended aspect ratio of PC-TW is 0.05. Under Ieq = 700W/m2, ηth can reach 42.57 %, while ηHCHO is only 0.88 %. In view of the poor percentage of ultraviolet radiation in solar radiation, how to improve the purification efficiency without compromising the thermal efficiency is a crucial topic for in-depth exploration in PC-TW.

Keywords: Photocatalytic-Trombe wall; Aspect ratio; Equivalent solar radiation intensity; Thermal performance; Purification performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:332:y:2025:i:c:s036054422502794x

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.137152

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