Erosion-Corrosion Properties of Solar Panels Exposed to Dust and Humidity

Abstract :

Located centrally in the sun belt of the world, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is in the most potentially productive region in the planet for harvestings energy from sun. The PV modules are subjected to large swing at night and day temperatures. Severely and frequency of dust storms and blasting action of sand particles and moisture are the major contributions to degradation PV modules.  The reduction in glass transmittance depends on dust deposition density with plate tilt angles and orientation of the surface with respect to wind direction. As the dust density increased from 15.8 to 48 g/m², the transmission diminished from 59.54 to 12.35 %. The photovoltaic density was found decrease by 40%. Prevention of dust and moisture ingress is vital to commercial success of solar modules. It was found that in aluminum frames moisture penetrated in the frame corners and expanded quickly to the rest of the modules. In later designs aluminum frames were used with polycarbonate. The black glass was used with resins and cables directly soldered to the corners of the laminate. A polymeric material was injected around the laminates. So provide a sustainable solution to keep the dust and water away a hierarchical surface was prepared. An E- glass was subjected to ultrasonic cavitations shutles penning, with a vibration frequency of 20 KHZ, shot diameter 2mm, for 840 second. After preparing    the surface Tio₂ sol gel coatings were applied to optimize optical transmission, thermal transmittance, solar factor, and water and dust repellency. A sol of TiO₂ was prepared from tetra-n-butyl ttanate(Ti(O-n BH4)₄  and one made was mixed with 2 ml titanium butoxide. The solution was hydrolyzed and aged for 24 hours. The coating was deposited by dip coater. The samples were treated with boiling water for 10-15 minutes. Water repelling agent fluoroallylmethoxy silane (FAS) was applied. A wet contacted angle of 120⁰ was obtained on the surface. Customized dust repulsion test (modification ASTM dust repulsion test) showed that    only find 1% of the surface was covered with dust after the test. The preliminary results have shown that the surface offers a good resistance to scratching test. Salt spray test (ASTM B1117) modified salt spray (ASTM B117A), recycling of UV exposer (ASTM D5802) and QUV tests (ASTM C154) are in progress.