In this research, an attempt has been made to review the applications of porous materials in solar energy systems. The paper covered both energy conversion and energy storage systems. Some of the applications of each solar energy system are summarized in Table 8. Table 8. Applications of each solar energy system.
Moreover, fibrous porous materials, porous ceramics, porous Silica material, and mineral wool (glass wool, stone wool, and ultimate) can be used as insulation material in solar energy systems. A porous material with low total thermal capacity can be used as an evaporation material in solar systems.
They applied a combination of the Monte Carlo Ray Tracing and finite volume methods. They stated that the porous receiver with high thermal conductivity can benefit from the dispersion of concentrated energy. Table 2 summarizes the research on applications of porous materials in solar collector.
Porous material has opened a new field to help improve the efficiency of solar systems. However, it is necessary to perform a review on recent attempts about applications of porous materials in solar systems to classify them and present some suggestions for future works.
A porous material with low total thermal capacity can be used as an evaporation material in solar systems. Some porous materials with low total thermal capacity are blackened jute clothes, dark painted sponge, and hay material.
Generally, porous materials with larger heat capacities and suitable values of the property of thermal inertia are adopted for thermal energy storage in solar systems. Impregnation of porous materials with phase change materials can be used to store the thermal energy. This technique efficiently recovers waste heat in the form of latent heat.