Abstract
Nanostructured thin films were synthesized using a silica-based sol-gel method. The morphology of the films was tailored by controlling the hydrolysis and crosslinking mechanisms of the tetraethyl orthosilicate precursor. Silica nanoparticle self-assembled structures and linear silica chains were crosslinked and formed monolithic nanostructured films. The self-assembly mechanism was investigated using coarse-grained molecular dynamic simulation. Three nanostructured configurations were synthesized and studied to optimize the surface features of the films and minimize the adhesion of sand particles. Surface microscopy imaging and adhesion force measurements using atomic force microscopy with an attached silica particle on the cantilever tip were performed to correlate the adhesion force and the surface structure. The solar specular reflectance of coated solar mirror samples was measured across the solar spectrum before and after the soiling test of the samples. The mechanical properties of the thin films were evaluated using nanoindentation measurements on coated substrates. The solution-derived thin film coatings can provide anti-soiling protection of solar glass in desert environments and increase the efficiency of photovoltaic and concentrated solar power installations.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 110302 |
| Journal | Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells |
| Volume | 206 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 2020 |
Funding
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy , Solar Energy Technology Office and Office of Building Technology Award No. BT0304020 . D.V. acknowledges financial support by the DOE Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences , Materials Science and Engineering Division. The SEM characterization was conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility. M.G. acknowledges financial support from the DOE Building Technologies Office. This research used the resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), which is supported by the DOE Office of Science . Part of this research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) , a DOE Office of Scientific User Facility supported by the DOE Office of Science under Contract DE-AC02-05CH11231 . ORNL is operated for DOE by UT-Battelle LLC under Contract DE- AC05-00OR22725 . J.P. acknowledges partial support by the Korea Basic Science Institute National Research Facilities & Equipment Center (NFEC) grant funded by the Korea government (Ministry of Education) (No. 2019R1A6C1010045 ). This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle LLC under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| DOE Office of Scientific User Facility | DE-AC02-05CH11231 |
| Korea Basic Science Institute National Research Facilities & Equipment Center | |
| NFEC | |
| Office of Building Technology | BT0304020 |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Science | |
| Basic Energy Sciences | |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
| Building Technologies Office | |
| Solar Energy Technologies Office | |
| Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering | |
| UT-Battelle | DE-AC05-00OR22725 |
| Ministry of Education | 2019R1A6C1010045 |
Keywords
- Adhesion force
- Anti-soiling
- Molecular dynamics
- Nanostructured thin film
- Solar specular reflectance
