Abstract
Recent developments in climate change have increased the frequency of dust storms in the Middle East. Dust storms significantly influence the performances of solar energy harvesting systems, particularly (photovoltaic) PV systems. The characteristics of the dust and the mud formed from this dust are examined using various analytical tools, including optical, scanning electron, and atomic force microscopies, X-ray diffraction, energy spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The adhesion, cohesion and frictional forces present during the removal of dry mud from the glass surface are determined using a microtribometer. Alkali and alkaline earth metal compounds in the dust dissolve in water to form a chemically active solution at the glass surface. This solution modifies the texture of the glass surface, thereby increasing the microhardness and decreasing the transmittance of the incident optical radiation. The force required to remove the dry mud from the glass surface is high due to the cohesive forces that result from the dried mud solution at the interface between the mud and the glass. The ability altering the characteristics of the glass surface could address the dust/mud-related limitations of protective surfaces and has implications for efficiency enhancements in solar energy systems.
Highlights
Dust accumulation on an insulator and the adhesion force between dust particles and the insulator surface were studied by Wang et al.[2]
Their findings revealed that the presence of electrostatic charges on the surfaces of the samples was a main factor in the adhesion of sand, which could be suppressed by the anti-soiling photocatalytic layer
The main findings show that the dust particles were found to be composed of a non-uniform distribution of alkali and alkaline earth metals, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, iron, etc
Summary
Characterization of the environmental dust is presented, and the influence of the mud formed from the dust particles in the humid environment on the chemical and optical characteristics of the glass is examined. The dust collected on the glass surfaces consists of large and fine particles and is a heterogeneous mixture of particles with various morphologies In this case, no standard set of sizes is dominant in the dust particles mixture. The slight bright appearance of the small particles in the SEM micrographs is associated with electron charging during the imaging. This charging indicates that these particles possess charges that allow them to attach to the large particles. By analyzing the SEM images of the dust particles, two principle quantities were identified: the aspect ratio and the shape factor. This result is in agreement with the previous study[20].
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