Effect of light scattering on the performance of a direct absorption solar collector

doi:10.1007/s11708-018-0527-5

Front. Energy

2018, Vol. 12

Issue (1) : 169-177 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-018-0527-5

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Effect of light scattering on the performance of a direct absorption solar collector

Kwang Hyun WON, Bong Jae LEE(

)

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34141, South Korea

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Abstract

Recently, a solar thermal collector often employs nanoparticle suspension to absorb the solar radiation directly by a working fluid as well as to enhance its thermal performance. The collector efficiency of a direct absorption solar collector (DASC) is very sensitive to optical properties of the working fluid, such as absorption and scattering coefficients. Most of the existing studies have neglected particle scattering by assuming that the size of nanoparticle suspension is much smaller than the wavelength of solar radiation (i.e., Rayleigh scattering is applicable). If the nanoparticle suspension is made of metal, however, the scattering cross-section of metallic nanoparticles could be comparable to their absorption cross-section depending on the particle size, especially when the localized surface plasmon (LSP) is excited. Therefore, for the DASC utilizing a plasmonic nanofluid supporting the LSP, light scattering from metallic particle suspension must be taken into account in the thermal analysis. The present study investigates the scattering effect on the thermal performance of the DASC employing plasmonic nanofluid as a working fluid. In the analysis, the Monte Carlo method is employed to numerically solve the radiative transfer equation considering the volume scattering inside the nanofluid. It is found that the light scattering can improve the collector performance if the scattering coefficient of nanofluid is carefully engineered depending on its value of the absorption coefficient.

Keywords direct absorption solar collector plasmonic nanofluid light scattering

Corresponding Author(s): Bong Jae LEE

Online First Date: 09 January 2018 Issue Date: 08 March 2018

Cite this article:

Kwang Hyun WON,Bong Jae LEE. Effect of light scattering on the performance of a direct absorption solar collector[J]. Front. Energy, 2018, 12(1): 169-177.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fie/EN/10.1007/s11708-018-0527-5
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fie/EN/Y2018/V12/I1/169

Fig.1 Optical properties of silica-gold nanoshells

Fig.2 Schematic of a direct absorption solar collector used in simulation

Parameter	Reference value	Variation range
Collector length, L/m	1	Fixed
Collector height, H/cm	1.5	1–2
Absorption coeffcient, $α / (cm − 1)$	0.3	0.05 –1
Scattering coeffcient, $σ / (cm − 1)$	1	0–2
Mass flow rate per unit width, $m ˙ / (kg · (m · s) − 1)$	0.004	Fixed

Tab.1 Parameters of solar collector

Fig.3 Performance of the solar collector with respect to the absorption coefficient of nanofluid at no scattering

Fig.4 Volumetric heat generation

q ˙ gen (y)

along the channel depth for various values of σ at α = 0.3 cm^–1

Fig.5 Effect of scattering coefficient

Fig.6 Collector efficiency and gain temperature of solar collector at α = 0.3 cm^–1

Fig.7 Heat loss (via convection as well as radiation) from top glass cover

Fig.8 Collector efficiency and gain temperature of the solar collector at an absorption coefficient variation of

0.1 − 0.6 ? cm − 1

Fig.9 Effect of channel height on collector efficiency

Fig.10 Performance of solar collector with or without scattering

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