RSM-Based Empirical Modeling and Thermodynamic Analysis of a Solar Flat Plate Collector with Diverse Nanofluids

As the energy demand for household applications is increasing, the utilization of solar energy becomes important in fulfilling the energy needs of electrical and thermal appliances. Harvesting the energy from solar through solar thermal energy systems will be effectively used in household and industrial heating applications where the consumption of electrical energy is predominant. Solar thermal energy is harvested through simple devices like flat plate collectors but involves many challenges. Solar flat plate collectors’ thermal efficiency is improved by increasing the heat transfer rate by replacing the regular fluids with nanofluids due to their superior thermo-physical properties. Investigators are driven to find novel energy and exergy analysis by the challenges in effective heat transfer and conservation by improving it by including gold, alumina, and copper oxide nanoparticles. To investigate the energy efficiency characteristics of solar flat plate collectors (FPC), the experiments are carried out by considering the different nanofluids (nanofluids with nanomaterials such as gold (Au) and aluminum oxide (Al2O3) as well as copper oxide (CuO) as thermal transport media), flow rates of nanofluids (0.016 kg/s, 0.033 kg/s, and 0.05 kg/s), and with mass fraction of nanoparticles (0 Au nanofluids 31.55 Au nanoparticle with 0.4