Transmissive microfluidic active cooling for concentrator photovoltaics
- Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA (United States)
- Univ. of San Diego, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Otherlab, San Francisco, CA (United States)
We present the design, fabrication, characterization, and field testing of transmissive active cooling for use in a point-focus spectrum-splitting hybrid concentrator photovoltaics/thermal (CPV/T) system. Seven parallel-path 100 μm thick microchannels are made using polydimethylsiloxane and attached to a CPV module containing a 6 × 6 array of 5.5 mm transmissive CPV cells on a sapphire substrate. Water is flowed through the microchannels to actively cool the CPV cells. The total transmittance of the CPV module reduces by 5.2% with the addition of the active cooling microchannels, relative to the module transmission with no microchannels. The peak cell temperature is measured as 69 °C with a thermal resistance of 9.35 K/W at 157 suns, well below the 110 °C maximum allowed temperature. A maximum flowrate of 16.7 g/s is achieved from a 13 psi pressure drop across the microchannels and manifold assembly. The flow characteristics within each microfluidic channel show maximum fluid velocity of 4.3 m/s (Re = 953) with a calculated convection coefficient of 1.7 × 104 W/m2 K (Nu = 5.36). The CPV/T module and cooling system performance was validated during week-long outdoor tests under varying solar conditions up to 250 suns using a 2.7 m2 parabolic dish collector mounted to a two-axis tracking system.
- Research Organization:
- Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AR0000473
- OSTI ID:
- 1613609
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1636448
- Journal Information:
- Applied Energy, Vol. 236, Issue C; ISSN 0306-2619
- Publisher:
- ElsevierCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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