Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Theoretically, If you wanted to heat a pool using a simple solar collector, would it heat quicker if the water moving through the collector was moving fast, slow, or would it not matter. Intuitively it would not matter because weather you pump 100 gallons a minute (which would come out hot) or 1000 gallons a minute at much cooler temperature it would heat up at the same rate. Then I thought about the heat absorption coefficient and efficiency of heat transfer to the water. If you pump more water through wouldn’t heat transfer efficiency go down because the solar panel doesn’t have time to reach an efficient temperature to transfer the heat to the water. Please help me solve this I’m going crazy pondering

Hello. This website is geared towards helping students with their science projects.

Is this question related to a science fair project? If so, tell us more about it and where you are in the process. Otherwise, there are other forums more appropriate for this discussion.

Thanks!