Performance study of storage thickness of the flat-plate solar collector

Abstract A solar water heater (SWH) system is the most frequently used devices for utilization of solar energy. Thermal energy storage devices are required to improve the performance of the solar water heating system. This study investigates the influence of storage thickness on the performance of a collector that incorporates phase change material (PCM) into an absorber plate collector at the bottom for thermal storage. The approach utilized in this work is an experimental method, which involves conducting trials to determine the influence of storage thickness on the efficiency of solar water heater collectors utilizing paraffin wax as thermal storage medium. The experiments were conducted using variations in the thickness of the PCM, with a flowrate parameter of 10 liters/hour and a PCM thickness of 4 mm, 7 mm, and 10 mm, taking into account the inlet and outlet temperatures. The results of the study show a comparison of efficiency between standard collector plates with variations in the thickness of the PCM. The efficiency of the standard flat collector plate is 79.84%, while for plate efficiency with variations in PCM thickness of the 4 mm is 83.93%, for the collector plate efficiency of 7 mm is 81.29%, and for the collector plate efficiency of 10 mm is 82.30%.