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Use of Lasers To Soften Edges of Glass Collectively Eliminates Troublesome Polymers
Using femtosecond lasers to type glass-to-glass welds for photo voltaic modules would make the panels simpler to recycle, based on a proof-of-concept research performed by researchers on the U.S. Division of Power’s Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory (NREL).
The welds would get rid of the necessity for plastic polymer sheets that at the moment are laminated into photo voltaic modules however make recycling tougher. On the finish of their helpful lifespan, the modules made with the laser welds will be shattered. The glass and steel wires operating by the photo voltaic cells will be simply recycled and the silicon will be reused.
“Most recyclers will confirm that the polymers are the main issue in terms of inhibiting the process of recycling,” stated David Younger, senior scientist and group supervisor for the Excessive-Effectivity Crystalline Photovoltaics group within the Chemistry and Nanoscience division at NREL. Younger is lead creator of a brand new paper outlining the usage of laser welds for photo voltaic modules. The paper, “Towards Polymer-Free, Femto-Second Laser-Welded Glass/Glass Solar Modules,” seems within the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics.
Written with NREL colleagues Tim Silverman, Nicholas Irvin, and Nick Bosco, the paper additionally counts as its coauthors two workers of Trumpf Inc., the California firm that made the femtosecond laser concerned. A femtosecond laser makes use of a brief pulse of infrared gentle that melts the glass collectively to type a robust, airtight seal.
The glass weld can be utilized on any sort of photo voltaic expertise—silicon, perovskites, cadmium telluride—as a result of the warmth of the weld is confined to a couple millimeters from the laser focus.
Photo voltaic modules are fabricated from semiconductors designed to seize a selected portion of the photo voltaic spectrum, harnessing daylight to create electrical energy. Usually, the semiconductors are sandwiched between two sheets of glass laminated along with polymer sheets.
NREL’s analysis confirmed that femtosecond laser, glass/glass welds are basically as robust because the glass itself.
“As long as the glass doesn’t break, the weld is not going to break,” he stated. “However, not having the polymers between the sheets of glass requires welded modules to be much stiffer. Our paper showed that with proper mounting and a modification to the embossed features of the rolled glass, a welded module can be made stiff enough to pass static load testing.”
NREL’s analysis is the primary to make use of a femtosecond laser to type glass/glass welds to be used in a module. A unique sort of edge sealing utilizing nanosecond lasers and a glass frit filler was tried prior to now, however the welds proved too brittle to be used in outside module designs. The femtosecond laser welds supply superior power with airtight sealing at a compelling value.
Younger stated the analysis is “definitely high risk, high reward,” however factors to a route for additional analysis to increase the lifetime of photo voltaic modules to past 50 years and to permit simpler recycling.
This analysis was carried out by the Sturdy Module Supplies Consortium, which is led by NREL and funded by the U.S. Division of Power’s Photo voltaic Power Applied sciences Workplace within the Workplace of Power Effectivity and Renewable Power
NREL is the U.S. Division of Power’s main nationwide laboratory for renewable power and power effectivity analysis and improvement. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Power LLC.
Information merchandise from NREL.
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