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					</table><p>Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (<a href="https://www.helmholtz-berlin.de/index_en.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HZB</a>) said they have achieved 32.5% conversion efficiency in tandem solar cells, which is the highest ever for this technology and also a world record.</p>
<p>The new tandem solar cell consists of a silicon bottom cell and a perovskite top cell.</p>
<p>European Solar Test Installation (<a href="https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/european-solar-test-installation_en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ESTI</a>), a certifying institute in Italy, measured the tandem cell and confirmed the value officially. This is also included in the NREL chart of solar cell technologies.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is a really big leap forward that we didn&#8217;t foresee a few months ago…We are very excited about the new value as it shows that the perovskite/silicon tandem technology is highly promising for contributing to a sustainable energy supply,&#8221; Prof. Steve Albrecht said.</p>
<p><strong>Technology modification</strong></p>
<p>The lead authors, Silvia Mariotti, and Eike Köhnen, developed an interface modification to reduce the charge carrier recombination losses and analyzed it in detail to understand the specific properties of the interface modification.</p>
<p>These developments were then successfully implemented in tandem solar cells, and were combined with further optical improvements, the researchers said.</p>
<p>Additionally, many more scientists and technicians helped to develop and fabricate tandem cells to achieve successful results.</p>
<p>Together, both the interface and optical modifications enabled the highest open-circuit voltage — the maximum voltage available from a solar cell — which resulted in the new record efficiency for the tandem technology.</p>
<p>There is an ongoing efficiency development by various research institutes and companies over the last years within the field.</p>
<p>The teams from HZB had claimed to <a href="https://mercomindia.com/conversion-efficiency-perovskite-silicon-solar-cell/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">achieve</a> a record value in late 2021 with an efficiency of 29.8% in a tandem solar cell made of perovskite and silicon. The result was certified by Fraunhofer ISE CalLab. The researchers<a href="https://mercomindia.com/new-perovskite-silicon-tandem-solar-cell/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> improved</a> upon their earlier conversion efficiency record of 29.15%.</p>
<p>In November, a team of researchers from Northwestern University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Toledo <a href="https://mercomindia.com/researchers-claim-solar-cell-shows-27-4-efficiency/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claimed</a> to have developed an all-perovskite tandem solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 27.4%, which is comparable with traditional silicon solar cells.</p>
<p>Image Source: Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin</p>
<div class="saboxplugin-wrap" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemscope itemprop="author"><div class="saboxplugin-tab"><div class="saboxplugin-gravatar"></div><div class="saboxplugin-authorname"><a href="https://cms.mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Gautamee Hazarika</span></a></div><div class="saboxplugin-desc"><div itemprop="description"><div class="designboxt">
<p><img class="alignleft" style="border-radius: 50%;height: 50px;margin-top: -4px;border: 1px solid #00b451" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Picture1.jpg" width="50" /></p>
<p><strong style="text-decoration: underline">Gautamee,</strong> Staff reporter at Mercom India<br />
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<a href="gautamee@mercomindia.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gautamee@mercomindia.com</a></p>
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<div class="authorboxn"><img class="alignleft" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Picture1.jpg" width="102" height="102" /><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" rel="noopener">Gautamee</a> is a reporter at Mercom India. Prior to Mercom, Gautamee was working as a multimedia news journalist at ThePrint in New Delhi. She has received her Bachelors in English Honors and Masters in English Literature from St.Stephen&#8217;s College, University of Delhi.<a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" rel="noopener">More articles from Gautamee</a></div>
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Tandem Solar Cell Achieves World Record with 32.5% Conversion Efficiency

<p>Scientists at Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (<a href="https://www.helmholtz-berlin.de/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">HZB</a>) have developed tandem cells that combine two different semiconductors and convert different parts of the light spectrum into electrical energy. The new perovskite CIGS tandem cell achieves a record efficiency of 24.16%.</p>
<p>The metal halide perovskite compounds mainly convert visible parts of the spectrum, whereas, CIGS semiconductors deal with the infrared light.</p>
<p>As the name suggests, CIGS cells are made of copper, indium, gallium, and selenium, and these can be deposited as thin films with a total thickness of only 3 to 4 micrometers. The perovskite layers are even much thinner at 0.5 micrometers. The tandem cells, which are a combination of CIGS and perovskite cells, have thickness well below the five-micrometer level, and this could lead to the production of flexible solar modules.</p>
<p>Talking about this latest combination, Steve Albrecht of HZB, said, &#8220;This combination is also extremely lightweight and stable against irradiation, and could be suitable for applications in satellite technology in space.&#8221;</p>
<p>Speaking on the tandem cells, Christian Kaufmann from PVcomB at HZB, commented, &#8220;This time, we have connected the bottom cell (CIGS) directly with the top cell (perovskite), so that the tandem cell has only two electrical contacts, so-called terminals. Especially the introduction of rubidium has significantly improved the CIGS absorber material.&#8221;</p>
<p>By using the new perovskite CIGS tandem cells, the team has achieved an efficiency of 24.16%, and it has been officially certified the CalLab of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE).</p>
<p>The new &#8216;2 Terminal&#8217; tandem cells have been made of CIGS and perovskite cells. The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), USA, has created a new branch on the famous NREL chart for this purpose. The chart has been keeping track of cell efficiencies for all solar types since 1976, and perovskite compounds were included since 2013.</p>
<p>Recently, several new world records using perovskite cells in combination with inorganic semiconductors have been issued by HZB.</p>
<p>Recently, the researchers at the NREL have <a href="https://mercomindia.com/lead-absorbing-technology-solar-perovskite-cells/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">come up</a> with a technology that could sequester the minuscule quantity of lead used in developing perovskite solar cells. This development might mark the beginning of an efficient emerging photovoltaic technology.</p>
<p>Earlier, Mercom had <a href="https://mercomindia.com/perovskite-cigs-semiconductors-efficiency-modules/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a> that combining thin-film solar modules based on perovskite semiconductors with semiconductors made of CIGS, solar module technology could cross the 30% efficiency mark, according to a study conducted by the Karls-ruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Nice Solar Energy, and the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW).</p>
<p>Image credit: HZB</p>
<div class="saboxplugin-wrap" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemscope itemprop="author"><div class="saboxplugin-tab"><div class="saboxplugin-gravatar"></div><div class="saboxplugin-authorname"><a href="https://cms.mercomindia.com/author/rakesh-ranjan-parashar/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Rakesh Ranjan</span></a></div><div class="saboxplugin-desc"><div itemprop="description"><div class="designboxt">
<p><img class="alignleft" style="border-radius: 50%;height: 50px;margin-top: -4px;border: 1px solid #00b451" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Rakesh-Headshot-crop-2.jpg" width="50" /></p>
<p><strong style="text-decoration: underline">Rakesh Ranjan,</strong> Staff reporter at Mercom India<br />
<a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/rakesh-ranjan-parashar/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">More articles from Rakesh Ranjan.</a></p>
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<p><img class="alignleft" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Rakesh-Headshot-crop-2.jpg" width="77" height="102" /><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/rakesh-ranjan-parashar/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong style="color: #00b451">Rakesh Ranjan</strong></a> is a staff reporter at Mercom India. Prior to joining Mercom, he worked in many roles as a business correspondent, assistant editor, senior content writer, and sub-editor with bcfocus.com, CIOReview/Silicon India, Verbinden Communication, and Bangalore Bias. Rakesh holds a Bachelor’s degree in English from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). <a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/rakesh-ranjan-parashar/" rel="noopener noreferrer">More articles from Rakesh Ranjan.</a></p>
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New Perovskite CIGS Tandem Cell Achieves Record Efficiency of 24.16%

<p>Researchers at <a href="https://drexel.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Drexel University</a> have come up with a new class of materials that can store electrical energy very quickly called MXene, which is two-dimensional titanium carbide.</p>
<p>It works like a battery and can store a large amount of electrical energy through electrochemical reactions- but unlike batteries, they can be charged and discharged very quickly.</p>
<p>The team at Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (<a href="https://www.helmholtz-berlin.de/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">HZB</a>), in collaboration with Drexel University, demonstrated that the urea molecules between the MXene layers could increase the capacity of such ‘pseudo capacitors’ by more than 50%.</p>
<p>This new technology has certain advantages over the electrochemical batteries based on lithium, HZB scientists Tristan Petit and Ameer Al-Temimy, along with Yuri Gogotsi at Drexel University, used Xray absorption spectroscopy to study the MXene samples and they found some dramatic difference in pure MXene and MXene samples embedded with urea molecules.</p>
<p>The use of urea molecules alters the electrochemical properties of MXenes dramatically, and the surface capacitance increased to 1100 mF/cm <sup>2</sup>, which is 56% higher than with similarly prepared pure Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub>T<sub>x</sub> electrodes.</p>
<p>Speaking on the development, Ameer Al-Temimy, said, “We were able to observe the oxidation state of the Ti atoms on the Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub>T<sub>x</sub> surfaces. This oxidation state increased due to the presence of urea, which could facilitate the storage of more energy.&#8221;</p>
<p>Recently, the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (<a href="https://www.iiserpune.ac.in/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">IISER</a>) and SPEL Technologies Pune jointly <a href="https://mercomindia.com/new-technology-indigenous-graphene-supercapacitor-energy-storage/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">developed</a> a technology for generating functionalized graphene at lower costs.</p>
<p>This process will be used for the development of graphene-based supercapacitors for energy storage, according to the Department of Science and Technology. The supercapacitors will be fabricated at SPEL.</p>
<p>Earlier, researchers at <a href="https://www.research.ibm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">IBM Research</a> <a href="https://mercomindia.com/ibm-claims-come-up-battery-replace-lithium-ion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">came up</a> with a new battery that could help eliminate the use of heavy metals in battery production, and this could lead to a paradigm shift in the long-term sustainability of many elements in our energy ecosystem. Generally, heavy metals like nickel and cobalt are used in batteries, which pose a severe threat to our environment and are hazardous.</p>
<p>Image credit: Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin</p>
<div class="saboxplugin-wrap" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemscope itemprop="author"><div class="saboxplugin-tab"><div class="saboxplugin-gravatar"></div><div class="saboxplugin-authorname"><a href="https://cms.mercomindia.com/author/rakesh-ranjan-parashar/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Rakesh Ranjan</span></a></div><div class="saboxplugin-desc"><div itemprop="description"><div class="designboxt">
<p><img class="alignleft" style="border-radius: 50%;height: 50px;margin-top: -4px;border: 1px solid #00b451" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Rakesh-Headshot-crop-2.jpg" width="50" /></p>
<p><strong style="text-decoration: underline">Rakesh Ranjan,</strong> Staff reporter at Mercom India<br />
<a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/rakesh-ranjan-parashar/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">More articles from Rakesh Ranjan.</a></p>
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<p><img class="alignleft" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Rakesh-Headshot-crop-2.jpg" width="77" height="102" /><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/rakesh-ranjan-parashar/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong style="color: #00b451">Rakesh Ranjan</strong></a> is a staff reporter at Mercom India. Prior to joining Mercom, he worked in many roles as a business correspondent, assistant editor, senior content writer, and sub-editor with bcfocus.com, CIOReview/Silicon India, Verbinden Communication, and Bangalore Bias. Rakesh holds a Bachelor’s degree in English from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). <a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/rakesh-ranjan-parashar/" rel="noopener noreferrer">More articles from Rakesh Ranjan.</a></p>
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Researchers Develop a New Class of Materials that Can Store Energy Quickly

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