Burning fossil fuels releases a tremendous amount of greenhouse gases and causes destructive environmental impacts including air pollution, acid rain, and climate change, resulting in severe damage to human l. The employment of energy in human societies is growing to improve the quality of life a. Solar energy applications are divided into two main categories of the power plant and nonpower plant applications as presented in Fig. 2.3. Accordingly, it can be seen that the nonpower pla. 2.3.1. Solar thermal collectorsSolar thermal collectors are devices that absorb solar radiation and convert it into heat. Then, the generated heat is transferred by a. In recent years, there has been a growing tendency to use nanomaterials in engineering applications. If the nanoparticles are uniformly scattered, and stably floated in b. During the process of electricity generation using a solar cell, only a small fraction of received solar radiation is converted to electricity while a large portion of solar energy is getting.