A Review on Revolution of Flat Plate Collector for Solar Water Heater

Abstract

Energy is the significant need of the world either for nutrition or for development of the society. The power bank of the earth is the sun, which has tremendous amount of energy in it and will never exhaust. The conversion of solar energy to thermal energy is the function of collector. Flat plate collector (FPC) are cost effective and more convenience in all collectors. The paper reveals the different design of the flat collectors used to enhance the efficiency of the collector. Effect of using phase change material, nanofluids, heat pipe, different geometry of the tubes and absorber discussed. This review deals with the suggestion for the research work in flat plate collector. Keywords: FPC Design; Solar Collectors; different collectors for SWH; Design of SWH I. INTRODUCTIONEnergy is the most important and a key factor in day-to-day life. The keen interest is towards the solar energy which is a pure green energy and available in plenty. The energy of Sun used to heat the water, which is the great need of each human being for various purposes. During review it is found that the various solar water heating system were made by many researchers with relatively high efficiency and reasonable cost, but the system does not meet the requirement of other countries due to climatic conditions and many other reasons. Today environment is the major issue and the awareness regarding the environment is increasing this promote solar and renewable energy system in world and decreases the dependencies' on fossil fuels. The solar water heating system consist of riser tubes, absorbers a dark surface plate, insulation and glazed glass. The system when exposed to the sun, the absorber absorbs the solar radiation and transfers a part of it to the fluid flowing over/under it [3][4][5][6][7]. The more is the collector area more will be the energy, but the law of thermodynamics state that no machine can gives 100% output therefore we even cannot get the 100% percent conversion. Now, the design goals were to have the collector that can convert the maximum solar energy to heat energy with a lesser amount of losses; and cost. The objective for the review of solar water heating system is to get the various designs available and invented by researchers at one place to get the idea of possible development in it with the future of design in Solar Water Heater (SWH). The review is limited to the flat plate collector and other similar to it. There are two broad categories of SWH (passive and active), each of them operating in either direct or indirect mode. The active systems give 35%-80% efficiency higher than those of the passive systems [3].

Experimental Evaluation of Two Serpentine Flat Plate Solar Water Heating Systems

“…Solar water heating has been extensively studied and it has been reported that it can supply about 70% of sanitary water heating demand on residential and commercial facilities (Bracamonte et al, 2015). Solar water heaters play a vital role in low temperature applications especially in domestic area (Patil, 2015). Flat Plate Solar Collector is one of the known devices developed for harnessing solar energy and converting it to heat, particularly for applications requiring energy delivery at moderate temperature of up to 100 o C (Sukhatme and Nayak, 2008).…”