A Field Test of Dust Sedimentation on Solar Collectors At Guiren

Abstract

Soiling on the cover glass of solar collector is a commonly overlooked issue Very few available long-term information in Taiwan has been reported so far A field test on the dust sedimentation on the glass sample plates in the Guiren Campus of National Cheng Kung University was conducted from October 2014 to April 2016 in this study A set of glass plates consists of one made of common glass while the other of the common glass with hydrophilic coating (TiO2) Two sets of glass plates were installed toward the south direction (i e 0° azimuth angle) with two tilted angles ( β) including β = 0° (horizontal) and β = 23° (around the latitude of the installed site) The weight of the dust sedimentation (W_D) on the glass surface and the normal transmittance (?τ) of the glass plate were constantly measured and recorded for each sample on the two-week and monthly basis respectively In the study dust deposition rates ranging 0 027 to 1 485 g/m2/month were observed and varied with time of year and inclined angles In dry season reduction in transmittances up to 19 9 % were found for horizontally uncoated glass The dust deposition rate is significantly affected by inclined angles and rainfall amount It is found that the surface modification of TiO2 coating seems ineffective to remove the moisture-mud mainly composed of SiO2 and CaSO4 The relationship between dust deposition rate and transmittance reduction was found by a regression analysis with a linear function of: ?τ=9 845W_D+2 609 with R^2 of 0 868 which indicates the linear fitting to the data is sufficiently accurate

Date of Award	2016 Sept 6
Original language	English
Supervisor	Keh-Chin Chang (Supervisor)