Effect of Differences in Cover Materials to Improve the Performance of Water Heaters
Abstract
Solar energy application is widely used for heat energy, such as for cooking, seawater distillation, water heaters, and food product dryers. One way to use solar energy is to use a solar collector, in principle, sunlight is focused on an absorber which will then be used to heat the water inside the absorber. Water heating collectors are designed or made is a type of solar flat plate collector that has a dimension 150×80 cm, and the pipe used to heat the flowing water is a 1 inch copper pipe with length 140 cm. Using rubber insulation to keep the heat out of the collector can be minimized and any kind of cover plate that is different variations of glass (a), aluminum (b), aluminum plus glass (c), and black paint aluminum plus glass (d). The purpose of this study is to compare the effect of cover plate variations on the performance of a water heater. Based on the results of the study at 1:00 p.m the highest temperature of the water out of the cover glass (a) reaches 72 oC on solar intensity 1200 W/m2, aluminum cover (b) reaches 56 oC on solar intensity 1198 W/m2, aluminum cover plus glass (c) reaches 58 oC on solar intensity 1130 W/m2, and aluminum black paint cover plus glass (d) reaching 62 oC on solar intensity 1200 W/m2. From these results, it can be concluded that the cover glass (a) greater efficiency in comparison cover A, C, and D.
