The investigation of energy and exergy efficiencies of the solar pond stratified with magnesium chloride

In this work, an insulated solar pond system with a diameter of 0.96 m, a depth of 1.10 m, the thickness of 5 mm and an insulated side and bottom walls thickness of 0.08 m and 0.10 m was constructed. The spiral cupper exchanger was constructed with a diameter of 0.01 m and the length of 11 m to extract of heat in the energy storage zone. 7 temperature sensors were used to measure the temperature of the inner zones of the solar pond. The inner zones? temperature was recorded the hourly by a data acquisition system. The density of the inner zones was measured to manual by using the 11 PVC pipes. Both the density and the temperature distribution profiles were obtained from August, 2012 to November, 2012. In spite of sudden temperature increase in the energy storage zone of the solar pond, the salinity gradient of the solar pond has been stable was shown. Furthermore, the energy and exergy balance equations of the magnesium-chloral solar pond were derived to determine the heat storage performance of solar pond. The solar pond?s efficiencies were calculated experimentally by using the energy and exergy balance equations. As a result, the energy and exergy efficiencies of the solar pond were observed for the maximum as 27.41 % and 26.04 % in August, for the minimum as 12.64 % and 12.62 % in December, respectively. Regarding the results show that the magnesium chloride solar pond system works properly and a pond with suitable dimensions and properties can be used to obtain hot water for domestic and industrial use.