Novel high-durability luminescent solar concentrators based on fluoropolymer coatings

Fluorescent polymeric coatings can find interesting applications in the field of solar energy as thin-filmluminescent solar concentrators (LSCs). At present, polymers such as polycarbonate (PC) or poly(methyl-methacrylate) (PMMA) are commonly used as dye-doped host matrix materials in LSCs. However, LSCdevices based on these polymers still present limited lifetimes resulting from the intrinsic poor photo-stability of the polymeric carrier. In the attempt to achieve high-durability LSC devices, a series of newcrosslinked fluoropolymeric systems is presented in this work as potential alternative host matrix coat-ing materials for LSC applications. The chemical, physical and morphological modifications occurring tothe crosslinked fluorinated coatings when subjected to long-term UV–vis light exposure (over 1000 hof accelerated weathering) are found to correlate well with the photovoltaic response over long-termoperation of functioning LSC devices. In particular, better operational stability compared to referencePMMA-based devices can be obtained with the new crosslinked fluorinated coatings by appropriateselection of crosslinking agent. In addition, the effect of radical scavengers on LSC device operationalstability is also investigated and it is found that in the long-term light exposure regime (>600 h) theseadditives may lead to improvements in LSC device lifetime. The results of this study allow a greater under-standing of structure–property relationships in crosslinked fluorinated coatings subjected to long-termweathering and provide useful guidelines for the design of high durability fluorescent coatings for lightmanagement and photovoltaics.