Modeling and simulation of solar flat plate collector for energy recovery at varying regional coordinates.

Pakistan has remained an energy-deficient country, and most of the industrial sectors are closed due to the loading shedding of electricity. Even though Pakistan is located on the "solar belt" and receives over 2 MWh/m2 solar irradiation per year with 1500-3000 h of sunshine, unfortunately solar energy is not harnessed to fulfill the energy needs of the country. Solar flat plate collectors (SFPC) are widely employed for collecting solar radiations from the sun. Currently, worldwide solar thermal energy is widely used in household and commercial equipment for energy collection and utilization. The working fluid selected for this research work is water; numerical simulations were performed using Ansys FLUENT. On selected geographical coordinates, solar ray tracing model was employed to incorporate solar heat flux. Nawabshah (NWB), Hyderabad (HYB), Jacobabad (JCB), and Mirpurkhas (MPK) cities were selected for the measuring of performance of SPFC. Firstly, parallel to ground (at a 0° tilt angle) orientation of SFPC was performed. Furthermore, the performance of SFPC was measured using tilt angles of 15°, 30°, and 45°, respectively. The maximum exit water temperature in JCB at a tilt angle of 30° was 97.8 °C in March and a minimum of 88.09 °C in June. In HYD, at a tilt angle of 45°, the maximum temperature rise was recorded at 98.01 °C in November and the minimum was noticed at 76.37 °C in June. While in JCA, at an angle of 30°, the highest temperature was recorded at 97.83 °C in February and a minimum of 78.54 °C in June. The specific aim of this research study was to measure the performance of the SFPC at different tilt angles and at varying geographical coordinates through numerical simulations.

Green Synthesis and Incorporation of Sericin Silver Nanoclusters into Electrospun Ultrafine Cellulose Acetate Fibers for Anti-Bacterial Applications.

Fiber based antibacterial materials have gained an enormous attraction for the researchers in these days. In this study, a novel Sericin Encapsulated Silver Nanoclusters (sericin-AgNCs) were synthesized through single pot and green synthesis route. Subsequently these sericin-AgNCs were incorporated into ultrafine electrospun cellulose acetate (CA) fibers for assessing the antibacterial performance. The physicochemical properties of sericin-AgNCs/CA composite fibers were investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), field emission electron microscopy (FE-SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and wide X-ray diffraction (XRD). The antibacterial properties of sericin-AgNCs/CA composite fibers against Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) were systematically evaluated. The results showed that sericin-AgNCs incorporated in ultrafine CA fibers have played a vital role for antibacterial activity. An amount of 0.17 mg/mL sericin-AgNCs to CA fibers showed more than 90% results and elevated upto >99.9% with 1.7 mg/mL of sericin-AgNCs against E. coli. The study indicated that sericin-AgNCs/CA composite confirms an enhanced antibacterial efficiency, which could be used as a promising antibacterial product.