Perovskite Degradation – Major Breakthrough

Scientists the world over have been trying to create inexpensive, highly efficient solar cells out of perovskite, and this week some new research has come out which moves us another step in that direction. Perovskite degradation occurs rapidly when the naturally occurring mineral exposed to ambient air, which is quite the issue for a solar cell. According to the NREL team,Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have manufactured an environmentally stable, high-efficiency perovskite solar cell. Another step closer to commercial sale of perovskite solar cells!

Perovskite Degradation and the NREL Research

Perovskite Degradation
Perovskite Degradation (source: wikipedia.org)

CleanTechnica have written an article about the NREL Research on perovskite deterioration in ambient air and are reporting that the research team have successfully tested a perovskite solar cell in ambient conditions with no protection for 1,000 hours – with a fantastic result that 94% of conversion efficiency was retained.

The scope of the research is a little over our head, but if you’re interested in learning more about the study “Tailored Interfaces of Unencapsulated Perovskite Solar Cells for >1000 Hours of Ambient Operational Stability you can click the link to read about it via Nature magazine. 

In simplest form, previous methods of protecting the perovskite have focused on creating a protective enclosure around the solar cell. Instead of that, they focused on the ‘weakest link’ in a perovskite solar cell and replaced it with a different molecule.

“Each interface and contact layer throughout the device stack plays an important role in the overall stability which, when appropriately modified, yields devices in which both the initial rapid decay (often termed burn-in) and the gradual slower decay are suppressed.”

Perovskite research is moving along at a fantastic clip. Here are some other updates on this technology we’re really excited about:

 

 

 

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Perovskite Solar Panels Rolled Out (Saule/Skanska)

Poland based Saule Technologies have signed a distribution agreement with the Skanska group to roll out perovskite solar panels in 2018. This is the first company to bring the technology to market and it’s an exciting step forward for alternatives to the efficiency limited (read about the Shockley-Queisser limit) conventional silicon based solar panels.

Saule Technologies and Perovskite Solar Panels

Perovskite Solar Panels - Saule Technologies and Skanska Group in Poland
Perovskite Solar Panels – Saule Technologies and Skanska Group in Poland (source: skanska.pl)

We’ve previously written about research into perovskite solar cells and Greatcell’s $6m grant towards Perovskite Solar Cell research. But this is the first time they’ve been offered to the public – so it’s a huge step forward for the technology.

Saule Technologies are a Warsaw based start-up who will partner with multinational project development and construction firm Skanska AB to bring the semi-transparent perovskite solar modules to commercial office buildings. According to PV Tech, the first panels will be installed on office buildings in Poland later this year. 

On a press release on their website, Skanska said they have over €20 million in grants for their research and are currently building large-scale, prototype production line. They have been “working on the application of ink-jet printing for fabricating free-form perovskite solar modules since 2014”, so it’s exciting to see their research enter the next phase. 

“It is not a science-fiction vision anymore. Working with talented scientists from Saule, we are now turning fiction into reality and creating buildings which are more energy efficient and carbon neutral. Up to now this has not been possible on a large scale. Climate change is one of the biggest challenges the modern world is facing and it contributes to extreme weather events that are increasing in frequency and severity around the world. As such there is increasing legislative pressure to run businesses in a sustainable and attentive manner,” said Katarzyna Zawodna, CEO of Skanska’s commercial development business in CEE.

View the video below to learn more about manufacturing perovskite solar panels and the ink-jet printing/crystallization process:

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