In this work, a novel design for the NiO/TiO2 heterojunction solar cells is presented. Highly-pure nanopowders prepared by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique were used to form the heterojunctions. The electrical characteristics of the proposed design were compared to those of a conventional thin film heterojunction design prepared by the same technique. A higher efficiency of 300% was achieved by the proposed design. This attempt can be considered as the first to fabricate solar cells from highly-pure nanopowders of two different semiconductors.
In this work, a novel single-slope solar distillator of floating perforated absorber inserted with wicks (cotton ribbons), and a stepped distillator are designed and manufactured with the aim of developing the conventional distillator. They are examined experimentally at Baghdad, Iraq (33.3°N Latitude, 44.4°E Longitude) in order to enhance the freshwater productivity and the efficiency of the conventional distillator. Results showed that the daily productivity and efficiency of the stepped distillator are higher than that for conventional solar distillator by 30% and 36.19% respectively. The daily productivity and thermal efficiency for the distillator with the floating absorber are higher than that for the conventional distillator by 16%
... Show MoreHeat transfer process and fluid flow in a solar chimney used for natural ventilation are investigated numerically in the present work. Solar chimney was tested by selecting different positions of absorber namely: at the back side, front side, and at the middle of the air gap. CFD analysis based on finite volume method is used to predict the thermal performance, and air flow in two dimensional solar chimney under unsteady state condition, to identify the effect of different parameters such as solar radiation. Results show that a solar chimney with absorber at the middle of the air gap gives better ventilation performance. A comparison between the numerical and previous experimental results shows fair agreement.
High-resolution imaging of celestial bodies, especially the sun, is essential for understanding dynamic phenomena and surface details. However, the Earth's atmospheric turbulence distorts the incoming light wavefront, which poses a challenge for accurate solar imaging. Solar granulation, the formation of granules and intergranular lanes on the sun's surface, is important for studying solar activity. This paper investigates the impact of atmospheric turbulence-induced wavefront distortions on solar granule imaging and evaluates, both visually and statistically, the effectiveness of Zonal Adaptive Optics (AO) systems in correcting these distortions. Utilizing cellular automata for granulation modelling and Zonal AO correction methods,
... Show MoreThe different interactions between cometary tail and solar wind ions are studied in the present paper based on three-dimensional Lax explicit method. The model used in this research is based on the continuity equations describing the cometary tail-solar wind interactions. Three dimensional system was considered in this paper. Simulation of the physical system was achieved using computer code written using Matlab 7.0. The parameters studied here assumed Halley comet type and include the particle density , the particles velocity v, the magnetic field strength B, dynamic pressure p and internal energy E. The results of the present research showed that the interaction near the cometary nucleus is mainly affected by the new ions added to the
... Show MoreHeat transfer process and fluid flow in a solar chimney used for natural ventilation are investigated numerically in the present work. Solar chimney was tested by selecting different positions of absorber namely: at the back side, front side, and at the middle of the air gap. CFD analysis based on finite volume method is used to predict the thermal performance, and air flow in two dimensional solar chimney under unsteady state condition, to identify the effect of different parameters such as solar radiation. Results show that a solar chimney with absorber at the middle of the air gap gives better ventilation performance. A comparison between the numerical and previous experimental results shows fair agreement.
Well-dispersed Cu2FeSnSe4 (CFTSe) nanoparticles were first synthesized using the hot-injection method. The structure and phase purity of as-synthesized CFTSe nanoparticles were examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy. Their morphological properties were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The average particle sizes of the nanoparticles were about 7-10 nm. The band gap of the as-synthesized CFTS nanoparticles was determined to be about 1.15 eV by ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometry. Photoelectrochemical characteristics of CFTSe nanoparticles were also studied, which indicated their potential application in solar energy water splitting.
Artificial roughness applied to a Solar Air Heater (SAH) absorber plate is a popular technique for increasing its total thermal efficiency (ηt−th). In this paper, the influence of geometrical parameters of V-down ribs attached below the corrugated absorbing plate of a SAH on the ηt−th was examined. The impacts of key roughness parameters, including relative pitch p/e (6–12), relative height e/D (0.019–0.043), angles of attack α (30–75°), and Re (1000–20,000), were examined under real weather conditions. The SAH ηt−th roughened by V-down ribs was predicted using an in-house developed conjugate heat-transfer numerical model. The maximum SAH ηt−th was shown to be 78.8% as predicted under the steady-state condition
... Show MoreIn this paper, 3D simulation of the global coronal magnetic field, which use observed line of sight component of the photosphere magnetic field from (MDI/SOHO) was carried out using potential field model. The obtained results, improved the theoretical models of the coronal magnetic field, which represent a suitable lower boundary conditions (Bx, By, Bz) at the base of the linear force-free and nonlinear force free models, provides a less computationally expensive method than other models. Generally, very high speed computer and special configuration is needed to solve such problem as well as the problem of viewing the streamline of the magnetic field. For high accuracy special mathematical treatment was adopted to solve the computation comp
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