Abstract
Solar cells in PV modules crack during field operation from environmental stressors, including extreme weather events, such as hailstorms and hurricanes. These cracks can lead to gradual or immediate acute power degradation. To directly address cell-crack-induced degradation, we have formulated a carbon nanotube additive for commercial screen printed silver pastes. We have shown in previous work that these metal matrix composites have little to no effect on the cell's efficiency while enhancing the metallization's fracture toughness and electrical gap-bridging capability. In this work, we focus on optimizing the composite metallization to achieve the best possible performance. We discover that reducing carbon nanotube agglomerations in the paste not only improves the printability for narrow gridlines, but also increases the modulus of toughness of the metallization by over 500%.
Original language | American English |
---|---|
Pages | 1427-1429 |
Number of pages | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 20 Jun 2021 |
Event | 48th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2021 - Fort Lauderdale, United States Duration: 20 Jun 2021 → 25 Jun 2021 |
Conference
Conference | 48th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2021 |
---|---|
Country/Territory | United States |
City | Fort Lauderdale |
Period | 20/06/21 → 25/06/21 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2021 IEEE.
NREL Publication Number
- NREL/CP-5K00-81128
Keywords
- Carbon nanotubes
- Cell cracks
- Degradation
- Metallization
- Nanocomposites
- Photovoltaics
- Resilience
- Silver