Computational design and development of high-performance polymer-composites as new encapsulant material for concentrated PV modules

A computational design methodology is reported to propose a high-performance composite for backside encapsulation of concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) systems for enhanced module life and electrical power. Initially, potential polymer composite systems that are expected to provide the target properties, such as thermal conductivity, coefficient of thermal expansion, and long-term shear modulus are proposed using in-house built design codes. These codes are based on differential effective medium theory and mean-field homogenization, which lead to the selection of matrix, filler, volume fractions, and type of particulates. Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) loaded with ceramics fillers of a minimum spherical diameter of 6 μm are found potential composites. Some representative samples are synthesized through the melt-mixing and compression-molding route and characterized. The target properties including thermal conductivity, coefficient of thermal expansion, viscoelastic parameters, and long-term shear modulus are measured and used to evaluate the performance of CPV modules using previously published finite element model. The proposed composite can drag the cell temperature down by 5.8 °C when compared with neat TPU which leads to a 4.3% increase in electrical power along with a reasonable module life. It is expected that this approach will make a baseline for the effective production of polymer composites in various industrial applications.