Development of self-cleaning and energy efficient solar cells using two different coating techniques

Abstract

In this research, experimental investigations were carried to develop energy efficient and self–cleaning solar cells. Here copper was deposited for metallisation purpose using electroless coating process and titanium di–oxide was prepared using sol–gel method and coated over the copper coated solar photovoltaic cell using spin coating technique. In the electroless process, pH and temperature was varied at four different values and the surfactant cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide concentration was varied from 0–1.8 g/l. The activation time was varied from 1 to 5 minutes and the immersion time was varied with time gap of 15 minutes for 2 hours. The result shows, when the coating thickness was maximum of 12 µm when the pH was 8–9 and at the temperature of 85°C. The maximum voltage and the coating thickness of 0.612 volts and 10.53 µm/hr was obtained when the surfactant concentration was 1.5 g/l. TiO2 was coated for different speed and the maximum voltage and thickness was obtained at 4,000 rpm. SEM and XRD of copper coated and titanium dioxide coated samples were discussed in this paper.