Investigation of the effective operational parameters of self-cleaning glass surface coating to improve methylene blue removal efficiency; application in solar cells

摘要

Among renewable energies, using photovoltaic systems to convert solar energy into electricity without noise, toxin production and release of greenhouse gases has become increasingly important. These panels are diversely used on building roofs in urban areas, which exposes them to problems such as rapid deposition of dust and pollution that reduces light transmittance and cell efficiency. The present study aimed to enhance the self-cleaning ability of the glass surface of the solar cells. Therefore, titanium dioxide (TiO2) coating was applied for ultraviolet light section. TiO2 doped with nitrogen (N-TiO2) and four metals including copper (Cu-TiO2), cobalt (Co-TiO2), iron (Fe-TiO2) and silver (Ag-TiO2) coating were applied for visible light section. The surfaces were prepared by nanosol/dip-coating method. Using an ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrometer, self-cleaning of glass surface, removal of methylene blue (MB) and light transmittance was investigated. Moreover, the prepared samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis.