  Electropolishing has found wide application as the final surface treatment of
metal products in mechanical engineering and instrumentation, medicine and
reflective concentrators for PV cells. It was found that electropolishing (EP)
not only reduces the surface roughness and changes its appearance, but improves
many operational characteristics as well, such as corrosion resistance,
endurance, tensile strength, and many others, and also changes the
physicochemical properties, for example, reflectivity, electromagnetic
permeability and electronic emission of some ferro-magnetic metals. This fact
greatly expands the possibility of using this method in various fields of
science and technology. This work is part of a study, examining electro
polishing for reducing the crystalline defects adjacent to the surface, thus
improving its physical properties, contributing to higher optical efficiency,
when used in PV generation and storage devices. Five compositions were examined
using different temperature and current density parameters. The polished
samples were evaluated using reflectance spectrometry. The solution which was
composed of Phosphoric acid - 85%, Acetic acid - 10%, Nitric acid - 5% was
found to provide the best results. Another result obtained was that reflectance
increased as the current density increased up to 25 A/dm2. Further increasing
the current density resulted in deterioration of the surface and reduced
reflectance. It was shown that careful lapping and polishing followed by
electropolishing using the suggested solution may consist of an adequate
treatment for preparing reflective concentrators for PV cells.
