Industry 4.0-enabled 3D printing for sustainable antireflection coversheets: Enhancing photovoltaic performance with silicon nitride-modified copolymers

In recent times, there has been a significant expansion in the utilization of photovoltaic (PV) panels for electric power production to meet increasing energy crisis. The reflectance is a phenomenon that lowers the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of photovoltaic cells. The role of antireflection materials is crucial for absorbing the incident sunlight and improving the PCE. This work demonstrates the production of cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) AR coversheets for polycrystalline Si (p-Si) solar cells using Industry 4.0-enabled 3D printing technology to minimize reflection losses. Furthermore, silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) was incorporated with COC (COCN coversheets) at various weight proportions to improve the antireflection properties. Several characterization techniques were employed to evaluate the performance of PV cells with bare COC and COCN coversheets. The morphology and structural characteristics of photovoltaic specimen were evaluated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) technique. The optical characteristics like transmittance and absorbance of COC and various COCN coversheet specimen were examined by UV–Vis-spectroscopy. From the results, it is inferred that Si₃N₄ added at 3 wt% with COC (COCN3) coversheet sample exhibited maximum efficiency of 22.34 % in regulated environment and 20.06 % in sunlight exposure respectively. The impact of working temperature under both uncontrolled and regulated air environments on COC and COCN covered silicon photovoltaic cells is examined.