Because of limited sources of fossil fuel, renewable sources of energy are now getting concentration to meet up the huge demand of energy of modern technology. Among the renewable sources, solar energy source is considered to be the most important source because of its unlimited supply and numerous ecologically benign features. However, due to its diluted nature, it is required to concentrate this energy for fruitful utilization. Parabolic solar trough is one of the solar concentrators, for which a thermal fluid is used to absorb the solar radiation. However, most of the thermal fluids that are commonly used are synthetic and toxic in nature. In the frame of the sustainable development principles, it is necessary to establish a set of safe and non-toxic thermal oil for using in a solar collector. In this paper, both clean Canola oil and waste vegetable oil have been used as thermal oil to find out their performance. Experimental studies show a solar absorption efficiency of 77.8% and 37.67% with clean Canola oil and waste vegetable oil, respectively, can be achieved even at low solar irradiation conditions. All design criteria are investigated and reported in this paper.
