Estudo de materiais poliméricos para a plicação em coletores solares planos

Abstract

Efficiency and economy in energy production are key factors in the social and economic development of a country. Solar energy is a source of clean and renewable energy used for heating water through solar collectors. Over the past 15 years, due to the worldwide appeal for the use of more readily recyclable materials and their low cost, flat solar collectors have increasingly used polymeric materials to replace conventional ones. In order to assess which polymeric materials can be used in flat-plate solar collectors, an accelerated temperature test has been conducted on polysulfone (PSU), polyethylene (PE), and polycarbonate (PC). PSU and EP have stood out. PSU had the best result for degradation because its polymeric chain is composed of aromatic rings and strong bonds of carbon, sulfur and oxygen within the backbone of the polymer. Additionally, infrared analyses have been made of the materials aged in the accelerated temperature chamber according to the ATR method or attenuated total reflectance. They presented small molecular chain changes in the spectra in the infrared region as exposure time in the UV chamber increased. Finally, a numerical simulation of a flat solar collector was developed in the ESS (Engineering Equation Solver) platform in which the effect of the number of tubes in the absorber with different materials was simulated as well a geometry of square session tubes in the absorber. The simulation presented the best result with an absorber built with 100 polysulfone square session tubes, in which efficiency can theoretically reach 81.62%.