MoS2-based nanofluids as heat transfer fluid in parabolic trough collector technology

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URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10498/26491
DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2022.02.069
ISSN: 0960-1481
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2022-04Department
Química FísicaSource
Renewable Energy 188 (2022) 721e730Abstract
Concentrating solar power is becoming one of options for producing energy to replace conventional
polluting energy sources. However, improving the efficiency and reducing the cost of technologies based
on this type of energy to make it more competitive is still a work in progress. This study proposes
replacing the thermal oil used as the heat transfer fluid in the absorber tubes of parabolic trough solar
collectors (PTCs) with nanofluids based on spherical molybdenum disulphide nanoparticles with the aim
of improving the thermal efficiency of concentrating solar power plants. The colloidal stability of the
nanofluids was verified by UltravioleteVisible spectroscopy, Zeta potential and Dynamic Light Scattering
monitoring. The presence of spherical MoS2 nanoparticles resulted in an increase of up to 13% in specific
isobaric heat and 6% in thermal conductivity compared to thermal oil. Finally, the efficiency of parabolic
trough solar collectors was estimated to increase by 5%, which also favours the decrease of pumping
power and the elimination of selective coatings on the absorber tube. To our knowledge, this is the first
time that MoS2-based nanofluids are tested as heat transfer fluids in PTCs analysing its implementation
in the solar energy application.
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).