SCAPS Numerical Analysis of Solid-State Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Utilizing Copper (I) Iodide as Hole Transport Layer

Here, numerical study of solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell (SSDSSC) with Copper (I) Iodide as a hole transport layer was investigated using SCAPS-1D simulation software. The complete simulated device structures in this project are composed of FTO/TiO2/N719/CuI/Ni. Several key parameters of HTL such as layer thickness, doping concentration, working temperature, and interface defect have been analysed to obtain the highest efficiency for SSDSSC as well as the influence of back contact. The incorporation with various ETLs such as TiO2, ZnO, and SnO2 were also studied. The results show that SSDSSC with back contact yields a better performance due to low HTL thickness compared to without back contact. In addition, it can also be proved that TiO2 as ETL obtained the best efficiency up to 5.6%. Further investigation also found that combining optimized CuI and TiO2 parameters with a perovskite layer would increase cell efficiency to nearly 30%, higher than previously reported devices. The proposed parameter structure may trigger the temptation for the use of CuI as HTL in solar cell application

Widespread compact fluorescent lamp evaluations in 50 Hz electrical network

Rapid development in electrical technology has imposed strong challenges to modern power system. Power quality has become a great concern due to proliferation of power electronic technology in modern electrical loads. Specifically for lighting load such as compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), one of the concerning issues is harmonics. CFL is a cost-competitive and energy efficient compared to incandescent lamp. Inevitably, CFL produces harmonics current due to nonlinearity behaviour of the electronic ballast circuit. This paper presents a study on the widespread installation of CFL lamps in electrical power network. Initially, the harmonic current characteristics of local-branded CFL was identified from laboratory measurement. Then, a simulated CFL model was developed in MATLAB/Simulink to replicate the identified characteristics. The same step was repeated for other two different brands where eventually all models were embedded into a distribution network. The results show that at low voltage level, with installation more than 50 units for each type of CFL, the harmonic voltage distortion exceeded the 8% total harmonic distortion (THD) limit as stipulated in EN50160 standard. However, at higher voltage, the amount of THD decreased to average 0.94% and further down to average 0.28% at small transmission voltage level

Analysis of training function for NNARX in solar radiation prediction modeling

Neural Network Autoregressive Model with Exogenous Input (NNARX) is one of the Evolutionary Neural Network that had been used to develop a prediction model for solar radiation which involves a dynamic non-linear for a time-series based prediction. The whole process of Training, Testing, and Validation of NNARX is carried out by using a Training Function. Since there are several improvements that had been made in enhanced the prediction results using NNARX, it is the best to setup an analysis on the Training Function in finding the best to suit the solar radiation prediction modeling. In this paper, the analysis of the Training Function algorithm for solar radiation prediction modeling development using NNARX is carried out using MATLAB R2019a software. Each Training Function algorithm will be used in modeling development and their prediction output will be compared with the actual output. Based on the results, it is shown that Levenberg–Marquardt Training Function is the best Training Function algorithm for NNARX in solar radiation prediction modeling with the coefficient of determination value, R2 of 0.93423

Hotspot detection in photovoltaic array using thermal imaging method

To maintain the long-term reliability of photovoltaic (PV) modules while maximizing the power output, possible faults in the PV modules need to be diagnosed at an early stage. One of the problems that arise in the PV system is the formation of the hotspot. Numerous hotspot detection methods have been presented over the years to address this issue. This paper presents a non-destructive method based on aerial infrared thermography inspection using a drone for detecting the hotspot in a large-scale PV system. The result shows that the approach can successfully detect the formation of the hotspot in the PV array with overall temperature differences between normal and hotspot cells in the range of 0.6 to 20.4 ℃

Study on effect of barium titanate concentration in epoxy based composite towards dielectric material

The properties of dielectric material can be controlled by introducing new composite material from filler (barium titanate) and matrix (epoxy resin). This paper focuses on the development of epoxy–barium titanate composites at different filler concentrations. To develop new composite material, mixing, degassing, and curing are common procedures to be implemented. However, the preparation of composite materials is difficult when the filler concentration is higher than 20% due to the viscosity of the composite mixture. In this work, the complex permittivity of composite materials of epoxy resin and filler barium titanate is measured between 4 and 6 GHz using the waveguide technique. As a results, the permittivity of epoxy–barium titanate grows continuously as the filler volume increases

Application of epoxy-barium titanate dielectric composite material towards coaxial antenna

New cancer treatment has been explored in thermotherapy technology by using coaxial antennas. Coaxial antenna is used to transmit heat energy from power supply to cancerous tissues. High accuracy energy transmission is very crucial in order to ensure less energy is lost to surrounding or reflected back to antenna. High accuracy of transmission could be achieved if the impedance matching between coaxial antenna and cancerous tissue is good. In this work, the impedance of coaxial antenna is changing by tailored the dielectric material of insulator in the coaxial antenna. Newly developed dielectric composite material is used because of the feasibility to change the dielectric properties only by changing the composition of material used. The permittivity of developed composite material based on epoxy resin and barium titanate is 6.8 while the loss tangent is 0.04 which is suitable to be used as insulator in the coaxial structure. Based on simulation result of coaxial antenna, an improvement in transmission coefficient can be observed with the value of return loss is -63.84 dB. This indicates the heat energy is able to be transmitted with only 0.0004% loss

Local feature descriptor for multispectral image matching of a large-scale pv array

Possible faults in the photovoltaic modules must be detected early in order to preserve their long-term reliability while maximizing power output. Aerial thermal image inspection is frequently used to detect and locate photovoltaic module hotspots. However, noises can make it difficult to detect a hotspot from this image, causing the hotspot to be incorrectly located due to thermal reflection from the environment. Examining both visual and thermal images of photovoltaic modules appears to be one of the solutions. The multispectral image matching of photovoltaic modules is presented in this paper. The absolute structure map (SMi) and the directional structure map (DSMi) are proposed. The local region of each interest point is then described using a histogram of the oriented gradient based on the SMi and DSMi. For the SMi, the Gabor wavelet filter is applied, whereas the average filter is applied to the DSMi for the construction of the histogram bins. Finally, the normalized feature vectors are merged. Experiments were carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed structure map feature descriptor. According to the findings, this approach could give precision and recall up to 0.82 and 0.97 respectively

Environmental-friendly extraction of chlorophyll from pineapple plantation waste for dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) fabrication

Improper disposal of pineapple waste can cause negative impact to the environment. To reduce the waste, we decide to recycle it. Recently, we discover that the present of chlorophyll in the pineapple plantation waste in the leaves can be used to fabricate the Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) which is can be categorised as a renewable energy as well as environmental-friendly. The experimental and analysis was done to obtain the best condition of chlorophyll yield from the waste. The best condition from the mechanical extraction can be achieved by uncut the processed leaves at 3 cycle for extraction cycle by using the sugarcane machine. The highest value of chlorophyll a is 52.57 mg/ml and chlorophyll b is 113.05 mg/ml

Study on effect of barium titanate concentration in epoxy-based composite towards dielectric material properties

The properties of dielectric material can be controlled either by combining new composite materials or by altering the composition between the filler and matrix materials. This paper focuses on the development of epoxy-barium titanates composites at different filler concentrations and their relationship with dielectric properties. Epoxy resins are frequently utilized for their affordability, ability to withstand high humidity and resistance to chemicals. Meanwhile, barium titanate is recognized for its high permittivity. When these two materials are combined, they can create a high permittivity value that is advantageous for the design of small and compact antennas. In this work, five samples of different epoxy resin-barium titanate composites are made, at five different volume ratios of filler (5 vol%, 10 vol%, 15 vol%, 20 vol%, and 25 vol%). A low volume of filler results in a lower permittivity value due to the quantity of filler being less than the volume of the matrix base. Adding nano powder barium titanate to the matrix base can increase the permittivity of the composite material. However, when the volume of filler is too high, it may agglomerate, which can adversely affect the electrical performance. In this work, the complex permittivity of composite materials of epoxy resin and filler barium titanate is measured between 4 and 6 GHz using the waveguide technique. The results showed that the permittivity of epoxy-barium titanate grows continuously as the filler volume increases

Chlorophyll’s dependency towards electrical characteristics of banana midrib-based dye- sensitized solar cell for waste management solution

The application of Banana Midrib waste chlorophyll as an alternative natural dye in Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) could be advantageous. The natural colors utilized in this study were derived from the chlorophyll of the banana midrib. TiO, chlorophyll and KI serve as a working electrode, photosensitizer, and electrolyte in the DSSC respectively. Chlorophyll, which can be extracted from majority of greenly plants, is one of the important substances in absorbing the light for energy harvesting. Since the concentration level of chlorophyll defers for each type, age or part of the plants, numerous studies related to these scopes have been actively performed. In this study, banana midrib that are mostly common waste will be benefited to extract different concentration levels of chlorophyll for the fabrication of DSSCs' purpose. The relationship between the chlorophyll’s concentration level and the output of electrical properties will be further analyzed