Researchers in India found that dust during robotic cleaning can dramatically accelerate the degradation of hydrophobic antisoiling coatings on PV modules. Softer brushes, higher cleaning speeds, optimized cleaning intervals, and appropriate brush rotation can significantly extend coating lifetime.
Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (ITT Bombay) have investigated how robotic cleaning affects antisoiling coatings used on solar modules and found that the presence of dust during cleaning cycles can significantly reduce coating lifetime.
“Using an accelerated cleaning testbed that emulates relevant field conditions, we studied the effects of dust during cleaning, brush material, brush rotation direction, and horizontal cleaning velocity on four commercial hydrophobic coatings,” corresponding author Sonali Bhaduri told pv magazine.
“We found that dust during cleaning was the most damaging stressor, reducing coating life to approximately 1/82 of that observed when cleaning without dust,” Bhaduri said. “Among the other operating parameters, using a harder brush material reduced coating life to approximately one-third. Similarly, rotating the brush in the direction of travel reduced coating life to approximately one-third compared with the other brush-rotation configurations. Reducing the brush travel speed from 0.4 m/s to 0.1 m/s also decreased coating life to approximately one-third.”
