Nanomaterials for Solar Applications

A special issue of Photonics (ISSN 2304-6732).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2023) | Viewed by 2100

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Physics, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, USA
Interests: semiconductor; nanomaterial; photonics; renewable energy; electronic device

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is well known that nanomaterials with sizes ranging from a few nanometers to a thousand nanometers possess unique physical and chemical properties. For example, the nanomaterials can exhibit optical, mechanical, electrical, magnetic, and eletrochemical properties which are different from their bulk counterparties due to their high surface area and nanometer scale size. The electronic structure, localized vibration, and interfaces of nanomaterials lead to these unique properties with potential applications in many emerging areas.

One of the important applications of nanomaterials is for solar energy harvesting, which has been a key research area over the last 10 years. As the most clean and abundant energy source, solar energy is the ultimate solution to address the global energy needs. The current research covers the whole spectrum of solar energy related topics from energy storage to conversion of solar energy to different formats, such as thermal, electricity, chemical energy, hydrogen, and so on. Although much effort has been devoted to the use of nanomaterials for solar applications, there are still many grand challenges to overcome before large-scale practical applications, especially regarding the stability, efficiency, lifespan, and cost of those devices.

This Special Issue aims to publish original research and review articles in the broad area of nanomaterials for solar applications. The goal is to address the aforementioned challenges for expediting applications. Researchers are invited to submit their contributions to this Special Issue for any research on materials, designs, and understandings related to solar energy applications using nanomaterials. Topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Solar fuel production;
  • Solar to chemical energy conversion;
  • Solar cells;
  • Solar energy storage;
  • Solar water sterilization;
  • Solar hydrogen evolution/oxygen reduction;
  • Solar water evaporation;
  • Solar thermal energy.

Prof. Dr. Jingbiao Cui
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Photonics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • solar fuel production
  • solar to chemical energy conversion
  • solar cells
  • solar energy storage
  • solar water sterilization solar hydrogen evolution/oxygen reduction
  • solar water evaporation
  • solar thermal energy

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

21 pages, 8536 KiB  
Article
A Novel Metaheuristic Approach for Solar Photovoltaic Parameter Extraction Using Manufacturer Data
by Salwan Tajjour, Shyam Singh Chandel, Hasmat Malik, Majed A. Alotaibi and Taha Selim Ustun
Photonics 2022, 9(11), 858; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9110858 - 13 Nov 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1674
Abstract
Solar photovoltaic (PV) panel parameter estimation is vital to manage solar-based microgrid operations, for which several techniques have been developed. Solar cell modeling using metaheuristic algorithms is found to be one of the accurate techniques. However, it requires experimental datasets, which may not [...] Read more.
Solar photovoltaic (PV) panel parameter estimation is vital to manage solar-based microgrid operations, for which several techniques have been developed. Solar cell modeling using metaheuristic algorithms is found to be one of the accurate techniques. However, it requires experimental datasets, which may not be available for most of the industrial modules. Therefore, this study proposed a new model to estimate the solar parameters for two types of PV panels using manufacturer datasheets only. In addition, two optimization techniques called particle swarm optimization (PSO) and genetic algorithm (GA) were also investigated for solving this problem. The predicted results showed that GA is more accurate than PSO, but PSO is faster. The new model was tested under different solar radiation conditions and found to be accurate under all conditions, with an error which varied between 7.6212 × 10−4 under standard testing conditions and 0.0032 at 200 W/m2 solar radiation. Further comparison of the proposed method with other methods in the literature showed its capability to compete with other models despite not using experimental datasets. The study is of significance for the sustainable energy management of newly established commercial PV micro grids. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanomaterials for Solar Applications)
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