Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2021) 136: 366
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-01314-1

Regular Article

Performance analysis of solar parabolic collector using Al₂O₃ nanofluids

Department of Mechanical Engineering, SVUCE, 517502, Tirupati, India

^a vuppalahari317@gmail.com

Received: 24 January 2021
Accepted: 13 March 2021
Published online: 7 April 2021

Abstract

The present study has been carried out to examine the performance analysis of parabolic solar collector using Al₂O₃ water-based nanofluids, Al₂O₃-ethylene glycol-based nanofluids, with different nanoparticle volume concentrations such as 2%, 4% and 6%. Experiments are conducted to determine thermophysical properties such as thermal conductivity, specific heat, density, viscosity using a KD2 prothermal properties analyser, a differential scanning calorimeter, electronic weighing balance, a capillary viscometer, respectively, and the obtained results are compared with solutions of theoretical models. Afterwards, these nanofluids are used in parabolic collector to study its performance for getting high thermal efficiency.