Effect of Additives on the Durability and Properties of Antireflective Films for Solar Glass Covers

Generally, single layer antireflective (AR) coatings are based on $SiO2$ for which the low refractive index is achieved by increasing the porosity of the films. On the other hand, the increase of porosity on any material results in a decrease of its mechanical properties. In addition to increasing the solar transmittance, it is equally important that the AR film is long-term stable for its application in solar collectors. In this sense, the objective of our work has been to develop a film that exhibits good AR properties and physical durability as well. In the present study, sol-gel silica films have been deposited on borosilicate glass. The effect of adding some organic compounds to the precursor solution in the properties of the films has been studied. Moreover, accelerated weathering tests have been performed in order to investigate the outdoor durability. A value of solar transmittance as high as 0.974 has been obtained by using a porosity promoter additive. However, the durability tests have shown the necessity of incorporating a hydrophobic additive to the precursor solutions in order to avoid the degradation of the optical properties of the films. 1.5% decrease in solar transmittance is observed after $1900h$ in the weathering chamber for films prepared with methyltriethoxysilane.