Comparative Study on the Effects of Surfactants on the Electroless Copper Coated Solar Cell and Optimizing Its Process Parameters

Abstract

An experimental investigation on optimizing process parameters in the electroless copper coatings on solar photovoltaic cells under specific coating conditions has been carried out and reported. Coating parameters such as pH, temperature, and surfactants concentration were varied, and corresponding coating thickness and voltage were measured. To optimize the above parameters, design of experiment was conducted using full factorial method. The pH was varied at 4 different values such as 4-5, 5-6, 8-9, and 9-10 and temperature was varied at different values such as 75°C, 80°C, 85°C, and 90°C. The two different surfactants such as Sodium Do-decyl sulfate and Cetyl tri ammonium bromide were added and their concentration was varied from 0–1.5 g/L to 0–1.8 g/L, respectively. When pH was 8-9, the coating thickness was maximum of 12 μm and 11.63 μm and it was minimum of 3 μm and 2.6 μm, when pH was at 4-5 for Sodium Do-decyl sulfate and Cetyl tri ammonium bromide respectively. The coating thickness increases up to 12 μm when the temperature was 85°C and further increase in temperature destabilizes the electroless bath. The coating thickness was a maximum of 11.25 μm/hr and 10.53 μm/hr, when the Sodium Dodecyl sulfate and Cetyl tri ammonium bromide concentrations were 1.2 g/L and 1.5 g/L, respectively. The increased coating thickness of solar cells imparts increased open circuit voltage from 0.43 V to 0.65 V. The detailed experimental results and their analysis are presented in the main paper.