PDMS-based multilayer antireflective radiative cooler for the commercial solar module

ABSTRACT

A perfect blackbody can emit radiation of up to 480 Wm-2 at 60°C into the atmospheric window in the sky. However, designing such ARC (antireflective coating) for solar cells that can work as ARC and radiative coolers is challenging. A crystalline solar module having a single ARC of Si3N4 can emit radiation into the sky at about 84 Wm-2. In Contrast, at 35°C ambient temperature, our suggested ARC using Si3N4/SiO2/PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) may emit around 346 Wm-2. This significant thermal emission lowers the solar module’s temperature from 60.15°C to 48.55°C. This reduction in the solar module’s temperature leads to an efficiency improvement of about 0.56%, and more importantly, the module’s lifetime will increase by 25 years.

KEYWORDS:

• Radiative cooling
• solar module
• crystalline silicon
• PDMS
• antireflective coating

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).