Mohd Yusof Sulaiman

Metal oxide BiVO4 as photoelectrode in photoelectrochemical solar water oxidation

One of the great challenges facing the society today is replacing fossil fuels by renewable energy sources. Hydrogen from non-carbon sources is considered one of the viable potentials to help alleviate reliance upon fossil fuels for energy and addressing the environmental problems. Photoelectrochemical water splitting was brought to attention since the pioneering work in 1972. Since then, numerous metal oxide photocatalysts have been investigated to enhance the overall water splitting performance. Up to now, Bismuth vanadate, BiVO4 has emerged as the most promising photocatalyst in the construction of photoelectrochemical cell utilizing sunlight and water, the most abundant resources on earth. In this review, the principles, critical factors influencing the efficient BiVO4-based photoanode properties such as the crystal and electronic properties are discussed. Subsequently, the methods synthesis and research efforts adopted to develop efficient and active BiVO4 photoanode are presented.

Validation of Thermal Modelling for the Back Surface Temperature of a Photovoltaic Module for Hot and Humid Climate

Thermal modeling is one of the approaches used to assess the performance of photovoltaic thermal. The main objective of this study is to validate thermal modeling by using the experimental results to estimate the back surface temperature of a photovoltaic module in hot and humid climate. Several assumptions have been made to simplify the analysis base on energy balance method. Good agreement is observed between the experiment and thermal modeling, with a correlation coefficient (r) and root mean square percent deviation of 0.931 and 12.1% respectively.

Thermal Performance on Unglazed Photovoltaic Thermal Polymer Collector

In this study, the thermal efficiency of a polymer collector with unglazed photovoltaic thermal (PVT) system was determined. Overall heat loss was estimated using the heat energy balance method. Based on the analysis, the heat removal factor of the PVT system was found to be 0.55. The thermal performance of the system was 47% during the zero reduce temperature. The unglazed PVT polymer collector could replace the conventional PVT collector, which encountered problems such as high cost, weighting issues, and corrosion.

Thermal Modeling of Photovoltaic Thermal System with Polymer Sheet in Tube Absorber Collector

This study developed a thermal model of a photovoltaic thermal collector (PVT) to predict the performance and outlet temperature of the system. The PVT consisted of a polycrystalline photovoltaic module, a polymer collector–type sheet in a tube, and an insulator. The motivation of the present work is that the polymer materials are flexible, low cost and lightweight which are for the PVT applications. The outlet temperature of the PVT increased with the decreasing rate of mass flow into the riser because the water had sufficient time for thermal heating. One unit of polymer collector can achieve an outlet temperature of 69 °C at 500 W/m2 at a mass flow rate of 0.0063 kg/s.

Thermal Efficiency of the Photovoltaic Thermal System with Serpentine Tube Collector

Photovoltaic thermal (PVT) system is one of the renewable energy resources that produce electric and thermal energy simultaneously. One of the key parameters to ensure good performance of the PVT is the design of the collector absorber. In this study, a thermal model of the PVT was developed to predict the thermal efficiency of the system. Simulations were conducted on four configurations of the serpentine tube. Results showed that the best design could achieve 50% thermal efficiency at zero reduced temperature. Our findings indicate that the shape, gap, and diameter of the tubes of the absorber are crucial to the good performance of the PVT.