AAAR 36th Annual Conference October 16 - October 20, 2017 Raleigh Convention Center Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Abstract View
Optical Losses due to Aerosol Deposition on Solar Cells: Two-Stream Theory vs. Spectrophotometer Measurements
PATRICIO PIEDRA, Laura Llanza, Hans Moosmuller, Desert Research Institute
Abstract Number: 471 Working Group: Aerosol Physics
Abstract The efficiency of solar cells is degraded by aerosols deposition, potentially resulting in significant efficiency losses (≳85%). However, very little is known about the role of electromagnetic scattering and absorption in reducing the total optical power received by the solar cell semiconductor. In this study, we have conducted suspension-deposition experiments with optically absorbing and non-absorbing mineral dust compounds. Suspended dust settled gravitationally onto glass slides acting as surrogate for solar cells. The optical transmission of dust-deposited slides was measured for forward scattering and direct beam with an integrating sphere spectrophotometer. Transmission into the forward direction was found to decline with increasing optical depth, with a slope depending on the absorptivity of the deposited dust. A multiple-scattering radiation transfer model (two-stream model) was found to yield good agreement (within 5%) with experimental results for both types of dust. The two-stream model yields a multiple-scattering transmission equation that depends on two single-scattering quantities, namely albedo and asymmetry parameter. This study has the potential to help predict energy output of solar cells subject to aerosol deposition.