Naomie Beolle Songwe Selabi, Arnaud Regis Kamgue Lenwoue, Lesly Dasilva Wandji Djouonkep

Abstract: During the conversion of solar photovoltaic energy, the heat generated raises the temperature and results in reduced electricity conversion efficiency of the system. As the operating temperature plays a great role in the photovoltaic conversion process, cooling the operating surface is a key factor to consider in achieving higher efficiency. Numerical investigation using composite phase change materials (PCMs) in photovoltaic-cooling (PV-cooling) system was adopted in this study. Selected materials such as CaCl2.6H2O, paraffin wax, RT25, RT27, SP29, n-octadecane were used as PCMs while copper, aluminium, steel, nickel, polystyrene, polychlorovinyl and polypropylene were used as composite(matrix) materials. A two-dimensional transient heat transfer model based on enthalpy approach developed by computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD-Ansys-Fluent software) was utilized for optimization and enhancing the energy conversion efficiency. The numerical results showed that RT25 sphere has good compatibility with PV-cooling system, and the thermal conductivity barely had a significant value on PV-temperature for larger values, excepted for very low thermal conductivity materials such as plastics.

Keywords: PCMs; polymers; PV-cooling, Numerical model.

Date Published: December 15, 2021
DOI: 10.11159/jffhmt.2021.028

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