A numerical and exergy analysis of the effect of ternary nanofluid on performance of Photovoltaic thermal collector

Hybrid nanofluids have been known to provide perceptibly increased heat transfer characteristics over conventional fluid, and so have been experimentally applied to solar collector applications. Recently, attention has grown towards three-particle hybrid nanocomposites, to investigate their increased thermophysical properties for heat transfer applications. This study numerically investigates the practical application of CuO-MgO-TiO2 ternary nanofluids in a photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) collector. The proposed model explores the effect of volume fraction, solar irradiation, and mass flow rate on the performance of the collector system. The result showed an improved electrical efficiency of 13.54%. 58.38% and 15.68% thermal efficiency and energy efficiency respectively were also gotten, calculated at an optimum volume fraction of 0.01. The maximum cell temperature drop was 8.24 °C measured at a mass flow rate of 0.1 kg s−1. The study also concludes that a maximum increase of 11.14% of the total PV/T system was achieved by the use of ternary nanofluid. The study also investigated the pressure drop and pumping power of the PV/T collector with and without nanofluid. The result showed that a lower pressure drop and pumping power for the CuO–MgO–TiO2 ternary nanofluid which makes it more desirable as compared to the Al2O3–ZnO hybrid nanofluid. Finally, it is shown that the performance of the PV/T collector depends highly on the volume fraction of the ternary nanofluid.