Study on solar-driven flat-plate loop heat pipe

Global efforts toward carbon neutrality highlight the importance of decarbonizing thermal demand, which accounts for the largest share of final energy consumption. In Japan, more than half of CO₂ emissions from households are attributable to heating, cooling, and hot water supply. Solar water heaters are an effective solution to this problem, but split-type systems consume electricity to operate the pump.In this study, we developed and evaluated a flat-plate LHP by improving the structure of the flat-plate loop heat pipe and placing the evaporator on the upper surface to enable low heat flux operation while directly collecting solar heat.