Experimental investigation of cooling performance enhancement of a photovoltaic module using a phase change material (PCM)-CuO nanoparticles

In this work, the effect of using the mixture of a phase change material (PCM) and CuO nanoparticles as a cooling agent on the performance of a photovoltaic module have been investigated experimentally. The phase change material that located in a chamber at the backside of module is cooled with spiral cooper tubes. Results show that using pure PCM significantly causes to decrease in the surface temperature of module from 58.34 ºC to 51.7 ºC. In addition, data depicted that adding CuO nanoparticles to the pure PCM results in increasing the cooling efficiency and the produced power. Increasing the weight of pure PCM and the mixture of PCM-4% CuO from 1 kg to 2.25 kg results in decrease in the surface temperature of PV module from 51.7 ºC to 48.1 ºC and 45 ºC to 42.9 ºC, respectively. In addition, by increasing the nanoparticles in PCM, cooling efficiency and the produced power are increased and the highest values are 22.87% and 3.46 W attributed to the layout of using 2.25 kg PCM and 4% CuO.