Steel-Tinplate as a Solar Wall Panel and Its Effectiveness

The aim of the research was to investigate black colored steel-tinplate use for absorber and covering material of the collector and compare the efficiency of three types of air heating collectors. This heated air can be exploited for drying of agricultural products, room ventilation and room heating etc. 0.1 × 0.5 × 1.0 meter long FPC （fiat-plate collector） with a sun following platform was built. Air velocity at the experiments was v = 0.9 m/s. Collectors of insulated and un-insulated surfaces with steel-tinplate absorber as a covering material warmed the ambient air up to 10-12 and 5-6 degrees correspondingly （at irradiance 800 W/m^2）. This difference indicates the great importance of insulating the collector body. It can be explained with intense heat exchange between the absorber and ambient air which reduces the efficiency of the collector. There was good correlation with irradiance and the air heating degree. The investigations showed that more effective FPC had the collector with absorber tinplate in the middle of the collector body. At favorable weather conditions the heating degree of the ambient air at the outlet reaches 6-8 degrees more that at the outlet of the insulated collector covered by steel-tinplate.