Feasibility Study of Parabolic Trough Collectors for Residential Water Heating

In this paper, a customarily fabricated parabolic trough collector (PTC) prototype is tested for residential water heating purpose. The testing location and time are, Silchar, Assam, INDIA in midsummer of 2015. We tested the instrument for two types of receiver tubes made from Copper and Stainless Steel with two types of working fluids (diatherm (Therminol VP-1) and water). Diatherm performed well compared to water with an average of 51% greater efficiency at the receiver tube. Maximum response rate of the device for an increase in storage water temperature is recorded 0.180C/min when diatherm was used as the working fluid. Maximum efficiency at the receiver is reported 37% when diatherm is in work. Since the aperture area of PTC is limited in residential applications compared to large scale applications, low efficiencies and low receiver temperatures are reported. Therefore, application of PTC systems for residential water heating is challenging based on its own limitations.