Enhancing the thermal conductivity of ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) in a photovoltaic thermal collector

• Main Authors: J. Allan, H. Pinder, Z. Dehouche
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: AIP Publishing LLC 2016-03-01
• Series: AIP Advances
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4944557

Samples of Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate (EVA) were doped with particles of Boron Nitride (BN) in concentrations ranging from 0-60% w/w. Thermal conductivity was measured using a Differential Scanning Calorimetery (DSC) technique. The thermal conductivity of parent EVA was increased from 0.24W/m ⋅ K to 0.80W/m ⋅ K for the 60% w/w sample. Two PV laminates were made; one using the parent EVA the other using EVA doped with 50% BN. When exposed to a one directional heat flux the doped laminate was, on average, 6% cooler than the standard laminate. A finite difference model had good agreement with experimental results and showed that the use of 60% BN composite achieved a PV performance increase of 0.3% compared to the standard laminate.