RESEARCH ARTICLE Aluminum-based thermal storage system with solar collector using nanofluid Vednath P. Kalbande | Pramod V. Walke | Rupesh Shelke Department of Mechanical Engineering, G. H. Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India Correspondence Vednath P. Kalbande, Research Scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, G. H. Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India. Email: vednathkalbande@gmail.com Abstract Metal and phase change material (PCM) is used for thermal storage system. Aluminum as a metal and erythritol as the PCM is a better option for the ther- mal storage. This thermal storage is charging with the help of solar energy through a solar collector. Parabolic trough solar collector is used to collect the solar energy. Evacuated tube was used to absorb solar radiation and soybean oil-based nanofluid containing Al 2 O 3 nanoparticles at volume concentration of 0.1% is filled in tube to transfer heat from absorber tube to thermal storage. Nanofluid was prepared with the help of ultrasonication. The heat transfer from the absorber to thermal storage through self-circulation unit. Experimen- tation is carried out with and without nanofluid. Nanofluid of soybean oil and Al 2 O 3 is enhanced the performance of solar collector. The thermal storage and absorber temperature is reached upto the 153  C and 178  C while using nanofluid. The discharging of PCM is carried out through experimentation. The PCM is filled in thermal storage, which changes its phase and stores the energy which can be used at night when solar energy is not available. KEYWORDS aluminum-based thermal storage, heat transfer fluid, nanofluid, phase change materials, solar collector 1 | INTRODUCTION Thermal storage using aluminum material is very popu- lar technology in recent years. Using thermal conductiv- ity of the metal, heat transfer in the system is occurring from one medium to another through conduction. Heat transfer fluid (HTF) transfers heat to metal and then it will transfer heat to a storage material such as phase change materials (PCMs). The PCM is filled in the cylin- der of aluminum and heating by the help of HTF through the conduction. Thermal conductivity of metal plays important role in this phenomenon of heat transfer from one medium to another. 1-3 Foam skeleton of aluminum metal using BCC and FCC structure has been made and PCM is filled in the whole structure. Metal foam skeleton filled with PCM and efficiency of the latent heat storage system has been enhanced. 4 Numerical study with exper- imental validation is done for metal foam using PCM. The effect of foam geometry on the performance of ther- mal storage system has been investigated and suggest the better geometry for the thermal storage system. 5 A new type of triplex tube heat exchanger using PCM was invented and experimentally analyzed for the charging and discharging of thermal storage system. The Al 2 O 3 nanoparticles are inserted in the PCM to enhance the efficiency of thermal storage. The PCM is filled in the middle area of heat exchanger with the help of fin arrangement. The HTF is circulated in inner and outer Received: 30 September 2019 Revised: 12 October 2019 Accepted: 13 October 2019 DOI: 10.1002/est2.99 Energy Storage. 2019;1:e99. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/est2 © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1 of 7 https://doi.org/10.1002/est2.99