Application of Nanofluids in Solar Energy

Abstract

Nanofluids are skillfully prepared colloidal suspensions of nanoparticles (which is of size
1–100 nm) in a base fluid; is a relatively new field, which is not more than two decades old. The main idea of this paper is to know about the applications of nanofluids in solar thermal engineering system. The shortage of conventional sources and environmental problems motivated the researchers to use non-conventional energy sources such as solar energy and others. Thus it is essential to improve the efficiency and performance of the solar systems. It is found that nanofluids have higher thermal conductivity which is temperature-dependent at very low particle concentrations than the respective conventional fluids. This can be observed as one of the very important parameters to upgrade the performances of many applications of nanofluids. Challenges of nanofluids are also considered in this paper. Some potential future works are also proposed to use the nanofluids in different solar thermal systems.

Keywords: Nanofluids, solar energy, efficiency, challenges

Cite this Article

Ruchik Thaker, Jatin Patel. Application of Nanofluids in Solar Energy. Journal of Alternate Energy Sources & Technologies. 2015; 6(2): 1–11p.