Solar thermal collectors - Chapter 6

In this chapter, a summary review on a large variety of solar-based thermal energy conversion available technologies are presented. Specifically, the following investigated devices are suitably for the conversion of solar energy to provide heating for the hydrogen production. The chapter is subdivided into three sections. In the introductory section, the classification of the solar thermal collectors is reported. It also gives the definitions of different features characterizing solar thermal devices. Note that, the presented classification is based on these features. The second section gives an analysis of non-concentrator solar thermal collector. Both flat plate and evacuated tube technologies are investigated. Also, it provides information regarding optical and thermal performances of such devices and introduce how they can be physically modeled. In third section, the concentrator solar thermal collectors are introduced. Specifically, the compound parabolic, the parabolic through collectors, the linear Fresnel, and the parabolic dishes are here investigated.