Performance Enhancement of Polycrystalline Silicon Based Solar Cell Using Ba2SiO4: Eu2+, Nd3+ Phosphor

Author Name(s): S. Admane, D.Chopde
Author Email: admanes@rknec.edu

Abstract

Solar energy is a renewable source of energy that is sustainable, clean and totally inexhaustible. The most commonly used, commercial solar cell which converts sunlight into electricity are fabricated using crystalline silicon with lower conversion efficiency. The main difficulty in improving the efficiency of solar cell is due to spectral mismatch i.e. low energy photons are not absorbed and high energy photons are partially used. One of the methods to significantly reduce the losses by using a DC(down-conversion) material which has the ability to produce from one higher energy photon to two low energy photons. This work provides details regarding the electrical characterization of the polycrystalline silicon-based solar cell. A Ba2SiO4: Eu2+, Nd3+ phosphor is synthesized and this material realizes down-conversion of photons near UV and the blue region around 350–450nm and have emission around 1067 nm. To provide mechanical strength to the solar cell, various encapsulation films are applied to the solar cell and their optical characteristics are evaluated. Amongst them, EVA (Ethylene Vinyl Acetate) has proven to be adequate for encapsulating polycrystalline based solar cell. The material is uniformly spread on the solar cell and encapsulated with EVA. Further, this effect has been exhibited under the experimental setup and significant increment in blue LED light source has been seen with almost twice rise in voltage and six times rise in current of solar cell.

Keywords Solar Cells, Down-Conversion, Polycrystalline Silicon, EVA, Ba2SiO4: Eu2+, Nd3+.

Introduction

In the most recent decades, the monetary development in numerous parts of the world could be sustained because of the comprised energy cost. Due to the lead-in in global warming issues and fossil, fuel cost turned the attention to towards development of renewable and non-polluting energy sources and new technologies for power generation. hydrogen fuel cell, Nuclear fusion, renewable energies are key possibilities to meet upcoming energy demand. From these options, to overcome Energy Crisis problems and future energy demand solar energy is a promising source of energy [1]. Solar cells are unique in that they directly convert the incident solar radiation into electricity, with no noise, pollution or moving parts, making them robust, reliable and long-lasting. Even with the many advantages of solar energy, the efficient and costeffective conversion of a solar energy into electricity through PV cells remains a challenging task. The most common material used in the photovoltaic cell is Silicon which is readily available in nature and over 90% of the Earth’s crust is composed of silicate minerals, making silicon the second most abundant element in the Earth’s crust (about 28% by mass) after oxygen [2].

Conclusion

In a polycrystalline silicon-based solar cell, maximum efficiency can be obtained if the proper spectral modification is done. This is obtained by using a down-conversion method which effectively harvests the solar energy from UV and NIR to enhance the efficiency and indirectly reduces the cost of the solar cell. To achieve this Ba2SiO4: Eu2+, Nd3+ phosphor is synthesized which has an excitation near UV light and NIR emission at 1067nm. To provide mechanical strength to solar cell EVA sheet is used as encapsulant with a negotiable variation in voltage and current values i.e. 0.4012% and 0.2845% respectively. After applying material with encapsulate increment of 5.8027% in open circuit voltage and 10.7866% in short circuit current is observed. As there is variation during measurement in direct sunlight, an experimental setup is used to measure open circuit voltage and short circuit current with various LED light sources. Almost twice rise in open circuit voltage and six times rise in short circuit current has been seen in blue LED light source. This can be used as a primary method for measurement of open circuit voltage and short circuit current values of the solar cell at a different wavelength.

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