Heat transfer through a solar pond nonconvective zone of recycled glass

The heat transfer through a recycled glass/water porous medium is examined experimentally to determine the medium's effectiveness as a nonconvective zone in a solar pond. Temperature distributions within clear bottle or broken glass/water mediums are studied with heated from above, and heated from below orientations. A small solar pond of glass bottles as well as a numerical simulation of a glass sphere solar pond are also investigated. Results of the experimental study show that convection was not suppressed by using bottles during bottom heating and indicate that stagnation will only occur with very small glass fragments. The computer simulation further indicated that even with perfect transmittance through the medium, pond efficiency will be far less than for a salt gradient pond. The small pond tests show no temperature gradient (indicating little stagnation), show little radiation transmittance through the medium (less than 10% for a .4 meter pond), and confirm the conclusion that a glass bottle or broken glass/water medium is unsuitable as a solar pond nonconvective zone.