IIT Madras researchers develop lightweight, low-cost system to concentrate solar energy

IIT Madras researchers develop lightweight, low-cost system to concentrate solar energy

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Anupama Mehra
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New Delhi, Updated on May 21, 2020 14:40 IST

IIT Madras researchers have developed a solar parabolic through collector system which can work on concentrating solar energy for industrial applications.

A team of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, has come up with a solar ‘parabolic trough collector’ (PTC) system that will help in concentrating solar energy for industrial applications like desalination, space heating, and space cooling.

IIT Madras said in a statement that the PTC is lightweight and has been developed to have high energy efficiency. It can work under India’s different climatic and load conditions.

The research was led by Professor K Srinivas Reddy, Heat Transfer and Thermal Power Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Madras, and his team member C Ananthsornaraj.

Reddy said in the statement: “Solar energy technology is the most propitious technology for clinching sustainability in the energy domain... States such as Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat, among others, have great potential to harness this energy, which can reduce the combustion of non-renewable and polluting sources of energy such as coal and petroleum.”

“We intend to commercialize this product and demonstrate the application of PTC technology with energy storage for sustainable energy solutions in agriculture, food, dairy and industrial process heat sectors,” the Professor said.

The PTC can be “integrated effectively with various process heat applications” to help manufacturers and researchers in solar energy make devices with higher efficiency, the institute said in a statement.

The PTC first concentrates sunlight into a small area where it is absorbed and utilized for heating to generate energy.

This system consists of a concentrator or reflector, receiver, supporting structures like a pylon, torque tube, mirror supporting arm and receiver support, and a tracking unit. The tubes absorb sunlight from reflectors, have a glass exterior and metal interior to hold a heat transfer liquid. To minimize the thermal loss in the process, the space between glass exterior and metal interior is maintained at low-pressure conditions.

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Anupama Mehra
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