Experimental Investigation of Using nanofluids in the Solar Flat plate Collectors

The objectives of this paper are to examine the effect of nanoparticles on flat-plate collector efficiency. This study employes direct synthesis method to prepare Cu–water nanofluid to serve as a working experiment fluid in a solar collector. ASHRAE 93 was used to test the solar collector. According to the experimental results, the collector efficiency washigher when the concentration of nanoparticles was raised and the results show that the efficiency of collector at 0.05wt%was approximately 24%more than that of the pure base fluids for given conditions. This study confirms thatnanofluids will have considerable potential for use in solar collectors.