Energy, exergy, environmental and economic comparison of various solar thermal systems using water and Thermia Oil B base fluids, and CuO and Al2O3 nanofluids

Abstract Recently, the use of solar thermal collectors has increased significantly. In the present work, energy, exergy, enviroeconomic and exergoeconomic analyses of various solar thermal collectors are investigated. These solar thermal collectors include flat-plate solar collector, linear Fresnel solar reflector, parabolic trough solar collector and solar parabolic dish collector. To examine the performance of these solar collectors two different working fluids, i.e. water and Thermia Oil B are considered. Furthermore, evaluation of the performance of solar collectors using nanofluids consisting of Al2O3 and CuO nanoparticles is presented. Also, in this paper, parameters such as exergy destruction rate, entropy generation rate, Sustainability index and Levelized Cost of Electricity for solar collectors are discussed. The performance of solar collectors in two different cities located in Iran (Tehran and Tabriz) is discussed for two different days (a winter day (2-Feb) and a summer day (14-Jun)). MATLAB software is used for mathematical modeling of solar thermal collectors. The results revealed that, the best and weakest performance from energy and energy points of view in all cases are related to the dish collector and flat-plate collector, respectively. Furthermore, the obtained results of the use of nanofluids as well as economic analysis may present new insights to the operation and development of such solar thermal systems.