Review on heat pipe based solar collectors: Classifications, performance evaluation and optimization, and effectiveness improvements

Heat pipe based solar collectors (HP-SCs) have emerged as a promising way to improve the performance of solar thermal collectors (STCs) and PV/T collectors, a technology that leads to a proliferation of scientific studies and literature. To date, several review papers have been published summarizing studies relevant to either HP-STCs or HP-PV/T. As the update development of HP-STCs, HP-PV/T technology shows common features from structural design to operation principles. There exist some degrees of inevitable relationships between such two kinds of HP-SCs. Therefore, it is meaningful to conduct a comprehensive overview of studies about these two kinds of HP-SCs. This paper aims to summarize the classification, performance evaluation and optimization, and effective improvements related to both HPSTCs and HP-PV/T collectors. Diverse performance evaluation and optimization methods, and effective improvement measurements for various HP-SCs are presented and discussed. This is followed by conclusive remarks of their application situations, performance analyses and comparison, and effective improvements. Finally, new research directions and potentials in this field are identified and recommended.(c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of heat pipe based solar collectors (HP-SCs), summarizing their classification, performance evaluation and optimization, and effective improvements. It discusses the common features and relationships between HP-STCs and HP-PV/T technology. The paper concludes with remarks on application situations, performance analysis and comparison, and identifies new research directions and potentials in this field.