High transmittance and highly amphiphobic coatings for environmental protection of solar panels

In this work the authors review the recent literature related to new solutions to prepare coatings with amphiphobic properties in order to provide self-maintaining systems able to limit the human intervention especially in large plants or harsh environments or, generally speaking, to keep the original functionalities of a solar module. Amphiphobic coatings match the requirements preventing both water and oil based pollutants from dust accumulation to natural and urban aerosols, from agriculture dispersions to bird droppings. The increasing need of renewable energy requires this step to be seriously faced with the aim to increase the yield and decrease the modules degradation. Still many issues have to be overcome and here we focus on surface aspects of aging and possible maintenance of the optical features of a solar panel. [Display omitted] •Environmental factors, natural and anthropic, affecting solar panels efficiency.•Self cleaning amphiphobic coatings reviewed according to this specific application.•Required high transmittance coating features are evidenced.