Polyfluoroalkyl-silica porous coatings with high antireflection properties and low surface free energy for glass in solar energy application

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URI: http://hdl.handle.net/11556/861
ISSN: 0169-4332
DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2019.144864
Publication date
2020-04-15
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Elsevier B.V.
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Abstract
Polyfluoroalkyl-silica porous coating stacks with durable antireflection (AR) properties have been obtained for photovoltaic (PV) application. An acid-catalyzed sol-gel process combined with evaporation induced self-assembly and the presence of a non-hydrolyzable polyfluoroalkyl group linked to the central atom of the silicon alkoxide was conducted. The aim was to obtain a low surface energy coating, devised to mitigate soiling adherence, without losing the AR properties of a baseline coating. In particular, the influence of polyfluoroalkyl chain length on the thickness, the water contact angle and optical transmission properties was first analyzed. The optimized polyfluoroalkyl-silica porous coating presented low surface energy < 20 mJ/m2, even with the desired low roughness values required for obtaining a negligible scattering of the incoming solar radiation. This coating was studied as an AR mono-layer and as an external coating in an AR bi-layer stack, with the presence of an inner dense-structured silica layer, that contributed to both the optical performance and durability, acting as an alkali diffusion preventing layer. The AR bi-layer stack deposited on two sides of glass provided a transmittance gain of 7.1%. Those optical properties were inalterable after accelerated aging tests, which sustains the reliability of the materials for solar energy applications.
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Sol-gel , Fluoroalkyl , Photovoltaics , Soiling , Surface energy , Antireflective
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journal article
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Agustín-Sáenz, Cecilia, Maider Machado, and Agnieszka Tercjak. “Polyfluoroalkyl-Silica Porous Coatings with High Antireflection Properties and Low Surface Free Energy for Glass in Solar Energy Application.” Applied Surface Science 509 (April 2020): 144864. doi:10.1016/j.apsusc.2019.144864.