Antifouling property of highly oleophobic substrates for solar cell surfaces

Abstract

Reduction of solar cell conversion efficiency by bird spoor or oil smoke is a common issue. Maintaining the surface of solar cells clean to retain the incident light is of utmost importance. In this respect, there has been growing interest in the area of superhydrophobicity for developing water repelling and self-cleaning surfaces. This effect is inspired by lotus leaves that have micro papillae covered with hydrophobic wax nanostructures. Superhydrophobic surfaces on transparent substrates have been developed for removing contaminants from solar cell surfaces. However, oil cannot be removed by superhydrophobic effect. In contrast, to prevent bird spoor, a highly oleophobic surface is required. In a previous study, we reported transparent-type fabrics comprising nanoparticles with a nano/micro hierarchical structure that ensured both oleophobicity and transparency. In the current study, we developed new highly oleophobic stripes that were constructed into semi-transparent oleophobic surfaces for solar cells. Solar cell performance was successfully maintained; the total transmittance was a key factor for determining conversion efficiency.

On the Durability and Wear Resistance of Transparent Superhydrophobic Coatings

“…Fukada et al [47] developed semi-transparent superomniphobic surfaces and applied as coating to integrate antifouling properties in solar cell devices. The coatings featured mesh and stripe structures (see Figure 19a,b).…”

Bio-Inspired Polymeric Structures with Special Wettability and Their Applications: An Overview

“…Generally, materials with only superhydrophobicity can be contaminated by organic oily species [ 60 ], which have surface tensions much lower than water. Materials that are both superhydrophobic and oleophobic are in high demand for many applications [ 150 ], such as anti-biofouling [ 182 , 197 , 198 ] for ships, non-stick [ 73 ] and corrosion-resistant [ 68 ] protective coating, cleaning polluted water [ 199 ], and anti-bacterial [ 200 ] coatings for cotton fabrics and microfluidics [ 53 , 201 ] in lab-on-a-chip systems. To fabricate materials that are able to achieve superhydrooleophobicity, bio-inspired micro-/nano- patterned structures [ 14 , 15 , 20 ] combined with surface energy reduction treatment [ 60 ] have been developed.…”

Superhydro-oleophobic bio-inspired polydimethylsiloxane micropillared surface via FDTS coating/blending approaches

“…Nevertheless, materials only with superhydrophobicity are usually not feasible because they can easily be contaminated by organic oily species [11][12][13] where surface tension is much lower than water. Hence, materials that are both superhydrophobic and oleophobic are in high demand in many applications such as anti-biofouling [11,[13][14][15][16] for ships, anti-sticking/corrosion [12][13][14][15][16][17] protective coating, self-cleaning in polluted water [15][16][17][18] and microfluidics [11,13,[18][19][20][21].…”