Experimental Study of the Performance of a Flat-Plate Collector Using Cu-Water Nanofluid

The objectives of this paper are to examine the effect of nanoparticles on flat-plate collector efficiency. Nanofluids are nanotechnology-based colloidal dispersion engineered by stably suspending nanoparticles. This study employed 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 was higher when the concentration of nanoparticles was raised and the results show that the efficiency of collector at 0.05 wt % was approximately 24% more than that of the pure base fluids for given conditions. This study confirms that nanofluids will have considerable potential for use in solar collectors.