On the use of nanofluids to enhance the direct absorption of solar radiation

Resumo

The present thesis evaluates the potential of solar nanofluids as direct absorption solar collectors and to generate steam. Nowadays, as energy consumption continues to rise while conventional energy are close to begin exhausted, there is an increasing demand for renewable energy technologies, especially solar thermal. Currently, solar thermal energy systems include numerous losses due to the heat transfer processes, thus, nanofluids have been proposed to enhance the solar collectors efficiency through the direct sunlight absorption. In this work, optical properties of different nanofluids carbon based have been characterised in order to study their suitability as direct absorption solar collectors.