Enhancing PV Cell’s electrical efficiency using phase change material with copper foam matrix and multi-walled carbon nanotubes as passive cooling method

Abstract The performance of a photovoltaic panel in generating electricity is adversely affected by the increase in the photovoltaic cell’s temperature. This paper proposed a passive cooling method using copper foam matrix in the photovoltaic panel’s phase change material with multi-walled carbon nanotubes additives. An experiment was conducted to compare the performance of the photovoltaic panel using phase change material/copper foam matrix with 0.20% multi-walled carbon nanotubes against the photovoltaic panels with (1) no phase change material, (2) phase change material only, and (3) phase change material/copper foam matrix without multi-walled carbon nanotubes. The results show that against the panel with no phase change material method (1), the cell’s temperature in the panel with phase change material/copper foam matrix and 0.20% multi-walled carbon nanotubes is reduced by 13.29% and its efficiency in generating electricity is increasing by 5.68%. Meanwhile method (2), the cell’s temperature is reduced by 4.50% while the improvement of the efficiency is at 1.97%. Finally method (3), reduced cell temperature and increased in terms of efficiency by 10.43% and 4.5% respectively. As a conclusion, copper foam matrix with multi-walled carbon nanotubes has a potential to be used as a passive cooling method to regulate photovoltaic cell’s temperature effectively.