Can hygroscopic hydrogels be used for evaporative cooling of PV panels?

The use of hygroscopic hydrogels for the evaporative cooling of PV panels is an emerging technique that has attracted attention owing to the high latent heat and recyclability of these materials. However, a comprehensive understanding of the heat and mass transport mechanisms in hygroscopic hydrogels is necessary.

How does hydrogel affect PV panel performance?

For the PV panel layer, it converts part of the absorbed solar radiation (qsolar) into electricity (qelec) and the rest into heat (qheat) . This study focuses on the cooling effect of hydrogel on the PV panel and the system overall performance, rather than the specific operating processes of the PV panels themselves.

Can hydrogel be used for cooling solar panels?

We believe that this hydrogel could have expected long lifetime for cooling solar panel, unless it works under extremely dry environment, like desert, and lost the residual water completely. Hydrogel actually is a frame to contain the phase change material for applications, provides the adhesive and reusable property.

Is Paa based hydrogel a good option for photovoltaic panel cooling?

Overall PAA-based hydrogel is a wise, but low cost method to offer cooling function for photovoltaic panel, since it already has inherent adhesion and this adhesion shows compatibility to all level humidity of the weather. 4. Summary and outlook

Is bio-inspired adhesive & cooling hydrogel useful for PV panels?

Meanwhile the strict durability tests should be done in future. We believe that this bio-inspired adhesive and cooling hydrogel is useful for the performance of PV panels because it not only contributes to the tunable cooling ability of a PV panel, but it also has a cost advantage owing to its “plug-and-play” feature and its reusability.

Can hydrogel be used to cool a PV panel?

This material could be very convenient as a light thin film prepared from hydrogel to be applied to a backsheet. In a previous study, Li used the atmospheric water sorption–evaporation cycle with dried PAM/CNT/CaCl 2 gel to cool a PV panel and obtained an obvious cooling effect ( Li et al., 2020 ). The estimated average cooling power was 295 Wm −2.