PhD Prospectus Defense: Arash Sayyah

Starts:
2:00 pm on Monday, August 11, 2014
Ends:
4:00 pm on Monday, August 11, 2014
Location:
8 Saint Mary's Street, Room 339
Deserts and arid zones offer enormous potential for solar energy harvesting that significantly exceeds the current market need. However, dust accumulation on the optical surfaces of solar energy collectors, such as solar panels and concentrating solar mirrors has a significant deteriorating impact on the performance of solar plants by absorption and scattering of the incident light. Commonly practiced cleaning methods such as high-pressure water jets and deluge water cleaning are both expensive and labor-intensive. As an alternative approach, the Electrodynamic Screen (EDS) has yielded promising results in mitigation of soiling losses via dust removal from solar collectors’ surface. An EDS consists of series of alternating electrodes deposited on a glass substrate and encapsulated by transparent dielectric layer to protect electrodes from exposure to atmospheric environment. When the electrodes are activated using high-voltage, low frequency pulses, the accumulated dust particles on the surface are electrostatically charged and then removed by the electrodynamic forces. The generated electric field varies both with respect to time and space coordinates, which provides the lift force and transport the dust particles away.