This study aims to investigate the enhancement in electrical efficiency of a polycrystalline photovoltaic (PV) module. The performance of a PV module primarily depends upon environmental factors like temperature, irradiance, etc. Mainly, the PV module performance depends upon the panel temperature. The performance of the PV module has an inverse relationship with temperature. The open circuit voltage of a module decreases with the increase in temperature, which consequently leads to the reduction in maximum power, efficiency, and fill factor. This study investigates the increase in the efficiency of the PV module by lowering the panel temperature with the help of water channel cooling and water-channel accompanied with forced convection. The two arrangements, namely, multi-inlet outlet and serpentine, are used to decrease the temperature of the polycrystalline PV module. Copper tubes in the form of the above arrangements are employed at the back surface of the panel. The results demonstrate that the combined technique is more efficient than the simple water-channel cooling technique owing to multi-heat dissipation and effective heat transfer, and it is concluded that the multi-inlet outlet cooling technique is more efficient than the serpentine cooling technique, which is attributed to uniform cooling over the surface and lesser pressure losses.

This review provides an overview of the importance of nanoparticles in various fields of science, their classification, synthesis, reinforcements, and applications in numerous areas of interest. Normally nanoparticles are particles having a size of 100 nm or less that would be included in the larger category of nanoparticles. Generally, these materials are either 0-D, 1-D, 2-D, or 3-D. They are classified into groups based on their composition like being organic and inorganic, shapes, and sizes. These nanomaterials are synthesized with the help of top-down bottom and bottom-up methods. In case of plant-based synthesis i.e., the synthesis using plant extracts is non-toxic, making plants the best choice for producing nanoparticles. Several physicochemical characterization techniques are available such as ultraviolet spectrophotometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, the atomic force microscopy, the scanning electron microscopy, the vibrating specimen magnetometer, the superconducting complex optical device, the energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to investigate the nanomaterials. In the meanwhile, there are some challenges associated with the use of nanoparticles, which need to be addressed for the sustainable environment.

The co-hydrothermal carbonization of biomasses has shown many advantages on charcoal yield, carbonization degree, thermal-stability of hydrocar and energy recovered. The goal of this study is to investigate the effect of co-combustion of cattle manure and sawdust on energy recovered. The results show that ash content ranged between 10.38%–20.00%, indicating that the proportion of each variable influences energy recovered. The optimum is obtained at 51% cattle manure and 49% sawdust revealing 37% thermal efficiency and 3.9 kW fire power. These values are higher compared to cattle manure individually which gives values of 30% and 2.3 kW respectively for thermal efficiency and fire power. Thus, the mixture of biomasses enhances energy recovered both in combustion and hydrothermal carbonization. Volatile matter is lower in mixture predicting that the flue gas releases is lower during combustion. Fixed carbon is higher in mixture predicting that energy recovered increases during the combustion of mixture than cattle manure individually. Higher Carbon content was noticed in mixture than cattle manure indicating that the incorporation of sawdust enhances heating value. The incorporation of sawdust in cattle manure can also enhance energy recovered and is more suitable for domestic and industrial application.