Sandia Corporation

National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC

Anthony Martino

Douglas A Loy

Jaime Christopher Grunlan

Erik David Spoerke

Kenneth Miguel Armijo

Eric John Schindelholz

Neil R Sorensen

Steven K Showalter

Stacey A Yamanaka

Margaret Ellen Gordon

Jeffrey S Kawola

Polymer-clay nanocomposites thin film coatings have improved water vapor and oxygen permeability, in addition to improved corrosion resistance, while retaining high transparency, high electrical resistivity, and excellent fire-retardant properties for use as encapsulants for photovoltaic module assemblies and barrier coatings in other photovoltaic applications.

Nanocomposite barrier films for photovoltaic applications

A dried gel material sterically entrapping nanoclusters of a catalytically active material and a process to make the material via an inverse micelle/sol-gel synthesis. A surfactant is mixed with an apolar solvent to form an inverse micelle solution. A salt of a catalytically active material, such as gold chloride, is added along with a silica gel precursor to the solution to form a mixture. To the mixture are then added a reducing agent for the purpose of reducing the gold in the gold chloride to atomic gold to form the nanoclusters and a condensing agent to form the gel which sterically entraps the nanoclusters. The nanoclusters are normally in the average size range of from 5-10 nm in diameter with a monodisperse size distribution.

Encapsulation of nanoclusters in dried gel materials via an inverse

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Albuquerque, NM, United States of America

Anthony Martino