Ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) has been a material of key importance as an encapsulant of photovoltaic (PV) modules used in the solar energy industry. Given that the encapsulant has such a vital role in maintaining the function of the PV module, it is important to understand and characterize the various failure modes of different material components that could occur in the field.
In this application note, EVA samples extracted from mini-PV modules aged under various conditions are characterized using a PerkinElmer Spectrum Two™ FTIR Spectrometer and a PerkinElmer TGA 8000 Thermogravimetric analyzer to investigate the degradation behavior of EVA.