Contacts on polyester textile as a flexible substrate for solar cells

Abstract

In the present work, the authors have studied conductive surfaces on polyester fabrics by using two types of commercially available conductive polymers; polyaniline and poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly (styrenesulphonate) (PEDOT: PSS) with 100 nm aluminium thin film evaporated on top of the polymer so the fabric becomes a conductive substrate for inorganic thin film solar cells. Conductive polymer surfaces on woven polyester fabrics were obtained by knife-over-table coating technique. Surface resistivities for polyaniline and PEDOT: PSS coated fabrics were measured and found in the range of 400 × 10 3 and 1 × 10 3 Ω/□, respectively. Thermal stability tests were carried out to evaluate the effect of specific periods of heal treatment at different elevated temperatures on resistance of polymer coated conducting textiles. PEDOT: PSS exhibited better stability than panipol. According to long term tests, PEDOT: PSS coated samples showed improvement in conductivity over 3 days whereas panipol showed the opposite. Transmission Line Model tests were performed to measure aluminium/polymer contact resistances which were found to be 120 × 10 3 Ω for polyaniline and about 46.3 Ω for PEDOT: PSS. Mechanical bending tests for aluminium/ PEDOT: PSS/fabric samples showed that the polymer can maintain the conductivity of samples by bridging micro-cracks in the metal film.

Performance Ratio and Degradation Rate Analysis of 10-Year Field Exposed Residential Photovoltaic Installations in the UK and Ireland

“…These high degradation rates were related to the fact that both PV sites are in cold areas. The increase in the degradation rates was due to the effect of the heavy snow, rain, and high wind speed on the surface of the PV modules; thus there was a higher risk of PV hot spots [25], micro cracks [26,27], and damage in the surface of the PV modules. Figure 4a shows an actual image of broken glass on a PV module located in Aberdeen site due to hoarfrost (this image was captured in February 2018), whereas in Figure 3b two hot spots were observed in the Glasgow PV system (these images were captured in June 2018).…”

Fabrication of Photovoltaic Textiles

“…To obviate this difficulty, we deposit first a thin layer of conducting polymer before depositing an aluminium film on top of it. Since the polymer is more flexible and more compatible with the fabric surface, sufficient conductivity is still maintained across any cracks that appear in the metal film [29].…”

“…The lower PV contact is formed of two layers: A liquid coated conducting polymer, PEDOT:PSS, and a vacuum evaporated metal, aluminium. The polymer coating is insufficiently conducting to form an effective PV electrode, but its flexibility enables it to bridge any microcracks that develop in the more brittle aluminium as the device is twisted or stretched [29]. This is followed by the photoactive, triple amorphous silicon layers (N-type, undoped, and P-type) laid down by low pressure, RF PECVD from silane with phosphine or diborane, at 200 • C or slightly less.…”

Fabrication of Conductive Textile via Chemical Oxidative Polymerization of Aniline on Polyester Cloth

“…Various materials such as graphene, carbon nanotube, metal oxides and conductive polymers have been employed as electrodes in supercapacitors. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Another plausible way to improve the capacitance is the introduction of reduction and oxidation ability to the electrode material, which is called pseudo-capacitance. Naturally conductive polymers like polyaniline can reversibly store electrons in redox reaction due to different oxidation states.…”