Experimental Investigation on Solar Flat Plate Collector Integrated with Solar Pond

Solar flat plate collector is a device which rises temperature of a cold water to higher temperature naturally by making use of solar energy. Such operation takes place at zero cost. Even though initial cost is high, FPC system is considered to be zero maintenance. Many researches have done so many experiments and still it is under progress to improve the efficiency of FPC. In this experimentation work, solar pond is integrated with solar flat plate collector (FPC) as a simple mean to improve the efficiency of FPC further. Experiments were conducted in two stages by keeping solar pond before flat plate collector inlet and after flat plate collector outlet. Two types of salts sodium chloride (Nacl) and potassium chloride (Kcl) were used and compared for periodic performance variation. Outlet temperature of conventional flat plate collector is increased to minimum of 37áµ’C and maximum of 58áµ’C. Thus this experimentation results in effective utilization of solar energy and improved flat plate collector (FPC) performance by simple integrations.