Increasing the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of silicon solar cells by improving their junction properties or minimizing light reflection losses remains a major challenge. Extensive studies were carried out in order to develop an effective antireflection coating for monocrystalline solar cells. Here we report on the preparation of a nanostructured cerium oxide thin film by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) as an antireflection coating for silicon solar cell. The structural, optical, and electrical properties of a cerium oxide nanostructure film are investigated as a function of the number of laser pulses. The X-ray diffraction results reveal that the deposited cerium oxide films are crystalline in nature and have a cubic fluorite. The field

There have been many advances in the solar chimney power plant  since 1930 and the first pilot work was built in Spain (Manzanares) that produced 50 KW. The solar chimney power plant is considered of a clean power generation that needs to be investigated  to enhance the performance by studying the effect of changing the area of passage of air to enhance the velocity towards the chimney to maximize design velocity. In this experimental and numerical study, the reduction area of solar collector was investigated. The reduction area that mean changing the height of glass cover from the absorbing plate (h1=3.8cm, h2=2.6cm and h3=1.28cm). The numerical study was performed using ANSYS Fluent software package (version 14.0) to solve go

A numerical investigation was performed on triangular solar air collectors by integrating unique layouts of triangular and alternating triangular copper metal foams with graded and non-graded pore densities. A three-dimensional CFD model was established to solve the governing equations of coupled systems for porous and non-porous domains. The two-energy-equations model was implemented to simulate heat transfer in porous media. The mathematical model was validated with numerical and experimental tests, with maximum mean absolute percentage error of 5% and 7%, respectively. To compromise heat transfer improvement with pressure losses, a partial metal foam insertion was adopted, covering 10% to 25% of the air duct volume. The findings indicate

The enhancement of the thermal and thermo-hydraulic performance of a semi-circular solar air collector (SCSAC) is numerically investigated using porous semi-circular obstacles made of metal foam with and without longitudinal porous Y-shaped fins. Two 10 and 40 PPI porous material samples are examined. Three-dimensional models are built to simulate the performance of SCSAC: model (I) with clear air passage; model (II) with only metal foam obstacles, and model (III) with metal foam obstacles as well as porous Y-fins. COMSOL Multiphysics software version 6.2 based on finite element methodology is employed. A conjugate heat transfer with a (k-ε) turbulence model is selected to simulate both heat transfer and fluid flow across the entir

In this work, the effect of vortex shedding on the solar collector performance of the parabolic trough solar collector (PTSC) was estimated experimentally. The effect of structure oscillations due to wind vortex shedding on solar collector performance degradation was estimated. The performance of PTSC is evaluated by using the useful heat gain and the thermal instantaneous efficiency. Experimental work to simulate the vortex shedding excitation was done. The useful heat gain and the thermal efficiency of the parabolic trough collector were calculated from experimental measurements with and without vortex loading. The prototype of the collector was fabricated for this purpose. The effect of vortex shedding at different operation condition

The different interactions between cometary tail and solar wind ions are studied in the present paper based on three-dimensional Lax explicit method. The model used in this research is based on the continuity equations describing the cometary tail-solar wind interactions. Three dimensional system was considered in this paper. Simulation of the physical system was achieved using computer code written using Matlab 7.0. The parameters studied here assumed Halley comet type and include the particle density , the particles velocity v, the magnetic field strength B, dynamic pressure p and internal energy E. The results of the present research showed that the interaction near the cometary nucleus is mainly affected by the new ions added to the

A solar cell was manufactured from local materials and was dyed using dyes extracted from different organic plants. The solar cell glass slides were coated with a nano-porous layer of Titanium Oxide and infused with two types of acids, Nitric acid and Acetic acid. The organic dyes were extracted from Pomegranate, Hibiscus, Blackberry and Blue Flowers. They were then tested and a comparison was made for the amount of voltage they generate when exposed to sunlight. Hibiscus sabdariffa extract had the best performance parameters; also Different plants give different levels of voltage.

Copper indium disulphide, CuInS2, is a promising absorber material for thin film photovoltaic which has recently attracted considerable attention due to its suitability to reach high efficiency solar cells by using low cost techniques. In this work CuInS2 thin films have been deposited by chemical spray pyrolysis onto glass substrates at ambient atmosphere, using different [Cu]/[In] ratio in the aqueous solutions at substrate temperature 3000C
and different annealing temperatures . Structural and optical properties of CIS films were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, and optical spectroscopy. Sprayed CIS films are polycrystalline with a chalcopyrite structure with a preferential orientation along the 112 direction and no remains of oxides

Within this paper, we developed a new series of organic chromophores based on triphenyleamine (TPA) (AL1, AL-2, AL-11 and AL-22) by engineering the structure of the electron donor (D) unit via replacing a phenyle ring or inserting thiophene as a π-linkage. For the sake of scrutinizing the impact of the TPA donating ability and the spacer upon the photovoltaic, absorptional, energetic, and geometrical characteristic of these sensitizers, density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT) have been utilized. According to structural characteristics, incorporating the acceptor, π-bridge and TPA does not result in a perfect coplanar conformation in AL-22. We computed EHOMO, ELUMO and bandgap (Eg) energies by performing frequency a