The design and experiment of low-cost solar collector systemfor recirculation aquaculture

Abstract. The temperature control of recirculation aquaculture consumes a large amount of conventional energy. Therefore, using renewable energy, such as solar energy, for heating is the trend in recirculation aquaculture. However, the existing solar collector system in aquaculture has problems of high initial investment and slow cost recovery. This paper presents a low-cost solar collector system for supplying a hot water for an aquaculture system. The system consisted of solar collector, circulating piping system， pump, a solar power supply device and storage tank. A solar battery was adopted for power of the system, driving the pump to work. A double black plastic film acted as the heat collecting material. The system uses water flow between two layers of black film to absorb the heat generated by the solar radiation. And the heat was stored in the storage tank through the circulation water. The cost of the collector is about a quarter of the flat plate collector, significantly reduces the system cost. The experiment results indicated that the average daily collector efficiency of the system could reach 49.6%.