SBIR Phase II: High-Performance Self-Cleaning, Anti-Reflective Coating for Photovoltaic Glass

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是通过提高电池板的效率和减少清洁和维护成本来降低太阳能发电的成本。这种改进是使用纳米级玻璃涂层来实现的，该涂层增加了单面涂层太阳能光伏玻璃的透光率，并创造了防雾和自清洁的表面。随着光伏设备效率的提高，这些节省也会增加，因此下一代太阳能电池将从拟议的创新中获得更大的好处。降低每瓦太阳能发电的成本是重大的能源挑战之一，并具有巨大的社会和政府影响。拟议的项目是应对这一挑战的一个组成部分。在这个项目中取得的技术进步也将适用于LED照明和其他尖端市场的额外市场机会。这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目使用工业可扩展的方法研究水基纳米颗粒溶液的沉积，并获得目前在该领域无法获得的有价值的科学知识。基于纳米粒子的抗反射玻璃涂层已经出现在科学文献和商业产品中。然而，大多数涂料要么是沉积成本高，要么是耐久性和性能之间的权衡。在这个项目中，在第一阶段项目中开发的低成本、高性能纳米颗粒的耐用性被扩展到高通量和低成本的制造方法。这种新型涂层的工艺/结构/性能关系将被研究，并导致与纳米颗粒技术大规模部署相关的新科学知识。镀膜玻璃将接受行业标准的可靠性和耐久性测试。这项工作的预期结果是与行业合作者在试点水平上展示这项技术。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to reduce the cost of solar generated electricity by increasing the efficiency of panels and reducing cleaning and maintenance costs. This improvement is created using a nanoscale glass coating that increases transmittance of single side coated solar PV glass and creates an antifogging and self-cleaning surface. These savings increase with photovoltaic device efficiencies as well, so as the next generation of solar cells will see even greater benefit from the proposed innovation. Reducing the cost per watt of solar generated electricity is one of the grand energy challenges and has immense societal and governmental impacts. The proposed project is one component of addressing that challenge. The technical advances made in this project will also be applicable to additional market opportunities in LED lighting and other cutting-edge markets. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project investigates the deposition of water-based nanoparticle solutions using industrially scalable methods and results in valuable scientific knowledge that is not currently available in the field. Nanoparticle-based antireflective glass coatings have been presented in both the scientific literature and commercial products. However, most coatings suffer from either high deposition costs, or a trade-off between durability and performance. In this project, methods to increase the durability of a low-cost, high-performance nanoparticle that were developed in the Phase I project are scaled to high throughput and low cost fabrication methods. The process/structure/property relationships of this novel coating will be investigated and lead to new scientific knowledge related to the large-scale deployment of nanoparticle based technologies. The coated glass will be subjected to industry standard reliability and durability tests. The expected outcome of this work is the demonstration of this technology at a pilot level with industry collaborators.