Penetration of Moisture in a Solar Panel Edge Seal

P.K. Mercure[1]
[1]The Dow Chemical Company, Midland, MI, USA
Published in 2012

Photovoltaic systems can degrade with moisture. The addition of an edge-seal containing a desiccant can reduce the amount of water reaching the interior. This report discusses the modeling of the water transport into the system to determine the amount of edge seal and desiccant required.
The moving freezing front of the Stefan heat-transport problem is used to model a moving moisture front. The COMSOL Transport of Diluted Species physics models diffusion, and the COMSOL Deformed Geometry physics is used to satisfy the Stefan conditions for the advancing front. Data for temperature and humidity can be added via Interpolation Functions for boundary conditions and material properties. This paper compares model results with experimental measurements and shows the model verifying designs.