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Investigating the degradation of front and rear sides of c-Si PV cells exposed to acetic acid
conference contribution
posted on 2019-01-29, 10:10 authored by Nikoleta Kyranaki, Jiang Zhu, Ralph Gottschalg, Tom BettsTom BettsThe goal of this paper is to investigate the reactions responsible for the degradation of the front and rear side of c-Si solar cells that are immersed in acetic acid solutions. The types of degradation are characterised by electrical, optical and chemical methods. The identified degradation modes are compared to those observed in PV cells undergoing damp-heat aging. The degradation of the power output of a PV cell exposed under damp-heat conditions typically is observed after 3000-5000 hours of exposure. The purpose of this work is to research if acetic acid immersion of PV cells can result in the same types of degradation observed for damp-heat aging and how these degradation modes affect their power output. It is observed that acetic acid immersion and damp-heat exposure show a similar mechanism of degradation. This degradation is identified to occur because of reaction of acetic acid with lead, tin and aluminium. Lead and tin migration causes separation of the ribbons and the silver contacts from the cells. Aluminium corrodes severely because of presence of moisture, causing a series resistance increase of the cells.
Funding
This study has received funding from the European Union's H2020 programme SOLAR- TRAIN under grant agreement No 721452.
History
School
- Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering
Published in
35th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition INVESTIGATINGCitation
KYRANAKI, N. ... et al, 2018. Investigating the degradation of front and rear sides of c-Si PV cells exposed to acetic acid. IN: Verlinden, P., Kenny, R. and Helm, P. (eds). Proceedings of the 35th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC 2018), Brussels, Belgium, 24-28 September 2018, pp.1372-1375.Publisher
© WIPVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
2018Notes
This is a conference paper.ISBN
3936338507ISSN
2196-0992Publisher version
Language
- en