Fuel oil heating by a trickle solar collector

A new type of flat plate solar collector was utilized for heating fuel oil. In a previous work, two identical flat plate collectors of the conventiona l fin tube configuration were investigated. One collector was filled with f uel oil, and the other was filled with water. It was found that the efficie ncy of the fuel oil collector was 25% less than that of the water collector . In this work, two collectors were tested. One was the same conventional w ater collector, and the other was a trickle collector whose working fluid w as fuel oil. It was found that the efficiency of the fuel oil collector was 15-19% less than that of the water collector. Comparing the results of this work with those of the previous one, it was f ound that the efficiency of the fuel oil-trickle collector is 4-9% larger t han that of a conventional one filled with fuel oil. It is concluded that a considerable portion of the efficiency lost formerly due to changing the w orking fluid from water to fuel oil in the conventional collector was almos t regained by changing the collector type to be a trickle one. (C) 2001 Els evier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.