Full metadata
Title
Characterizations of soil layers artificially deposited on glass and photovoltaic coupons
Description
The deposition of airborne dust, especially in desert conditions, is very problematic as it leads to significant loss of power of photovoltaic (PV) modules on a daily basis during the dry period. As such, PV testing laboratories around the world have been trying to set up soil deposition stations to artificially deposit soil layers and to simulate outdoor soiling conditions in an accelerated manner. This thesis is a part of a twin thesis. The first thesis, authored by Shanmukha Mantha, is associated with the designing of an artificial soiling station. The second thesis (this thesis), authored by Darshan Choudhary, is associated with the characterization of the deposited soil layers. The soil layers deposited on glass coupons and one-cell laminates are characterized and presented in this thesis. This thesis focuses on the characterizations of the soil layers obtained in several soiling cycles using various techniques including current-voltage (I-V), quantum efficiency (QE), compositional analysis and optical profilometry. The I-V characterization was carried out to determine the impact of soil layer on current and other performance parameters of PV devices. The QE characterization was carried out to determine the impact of wavelength dependent influence of soil type and thickness on the QE curves. The soil type was determined using the compositional analysis. The compositional data of the soil is critical to determine the adhesion properties of the soil layers on the surface of PV modules. The optical profilometry was obtained to determine the particle size and distribution. The soil layers deposited using two different deposition techniques were characterized. The two deposition techniques are designated as “dew” technique and “humidity” technique. For the same deposition time, the humidity method was determined to deposit the soil layer at lower rates as compared to the dew method. Two types of deposited soil layers were characterized. The first type layer was deposited using a reference soil called Arizona (AZ) dust. The second type layer was deposited using the soil which was collected from the surface of the modules installed outdoor in Arizona. The density of the layers deposited using the surface collected soil was determined to be lower than AZ dust based layers for the same number of deposition cycles.
Date Created
2016
Contributors
- Choudhary, Darshan (Author)
- Tamizhmani, Govindasamy (Thesis advisor)
- Rogers, Bradley Barney (Committee member)
- Srinivasan, Devarajan (Committee member)
- Arizona State University (Publisher)
Topical Subject
- engineering
- Soil Sciences
- Alternative Energy
- Current Voltage Characterizations
- PV degradation
- Soil Characterization
- soiling
- Soiling Station
- Solar Photovoltaic
- Dust control
- Photovoltaic power generation--Environmental aspects.
- Photovoltaic power generation
- Photovoltaic cells--Reliability.
- Photovoltaic Cells
Resource Type
Extent
xiii, 78 pages : illustrations (some color), color map
Language
Copyright Statement
In Copyright
Primary Member of
Peer-reviewed
No
Open Access
No
Handle
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.40231
Statement of Responsibility
by Darshan Choudhary
Description Source
Viewed on November 3, 2016
Level of coding
full
Note
Partial requirement for: M.S., Arizona State University, 2016
Note type
thesis
Includes bibliographical references (pages 68-69)
Note type
bibliography
Field of study: Engineering
System Created
- 2016-10-12 02:16:57
System Modified
- 2021-08-30 01:21:40
- 2 years 7 months ago
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