Sprng Energy, AMPIN, Juniper, ReNew, Avaada Win NTPC’s 1 GW Hybrid Auction

Biofuels Firm GPS Renewables Raises $50 Million in Debt Financing

Solar Auctions Surge by 229% in Q1 2024, Tender Activity Up 122%

Global Wind Installations Reached 1 TW Milestone in 2023

Funding and M&A Roundup: Nexamp Secures $520 Million

Project Finance Brief: Arevon Secures $352 Million for Posey Solar Project

Indian Oil Issues Empanelment Tender for Solar Power Projects

Southern Railway Seeks Bids for 1.2 MW Rooftop Solar Projects in Chennai

Husk Secures $4 Million from Electrifi to Scale up Mini Grids in Rural India

Doubling Transmission Capacity of Existing Grid Through Reconductoring: Report


					<table id="amazon-polly-audio-table">
						<tr>
						<td id="amazon-polly-audio-tab">
							<div id="amazon-ai-player-label">Listen to this article</div>
							<div id="amazon-ai-player-container">
			<audio class="amazon-ai-player" id="amazon-ai-player" preload="none" controls   controlsList="nodownload" >
				<source type="audio/mpeg" src="http://mercomindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/amazon_polly_37920.mp3?version=1657687915">
			</audio>
		</div>
							<div id="amazon-polly-subscribe-tab"></div>
							<div id="amazon-polly-by-tab"></div>
						</td>
						</tr>
					</table><p>Researchers at the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (<a href="https://www.zsw-bw.de/en/about-us.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ZSW</a>) in Germany coated a large area of perovskite solar cells with a green solvent dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), achieving a power conversion efficiency of 16.7%.</p>
<p>Perovskite solar cells exhibit potent properties that make them a substitute for crystalline silicon in photovoltaics. But utilizing certain solvents like dimethylformamide (DMF) can affect the life cycle of photovoltaics, adversely impacting workers&#8217; health.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://european-union.europa.eu/index_en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">European Union</a> and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (<a href="https://www.bmwk.de/Navigation/EN/Home/home.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BMWK</a>) funded the research.</p>
<p>The experiment titled &#8216;One-Step Blade Coating of Inverted Double-Cation Perovskite Solar Cells from a Green Precursor Solvent&#8217; was published in the <a href="https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Chemical Society</a>&#8216;s Journal of <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/journal/aaemcq" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Applied Energy Materials</a>.</p>
<p>Perovskites have the same crystal structure as the eponymous natural minerals. Researchers have used solar cells with perovskite layers as the light-absorbing material for some time.</p>
<p>However, perovskite precursors must first be dissolved and applied in uniform layers to the substrate to derive the best benefit.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-37925" src="https://mercomindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Inverted-Double-Cation-Perovskite-Solar-Cells.gif" alt="Inverted Double-Cation Perovskite Solar Cells" width="500" height="250" /></p>
<h6 style="text-align: center;">Source: ACS Publications</h6>
<p><strong>Blade coating perovskite solar cells with DMSO</strong></p>
<p>Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is one such solvent that the experts at the German research center found to be benign. The ZSW team used DMSO and achieved a power conversion efficiency of 16.7% on a 0.24 cm2 active perovskite area, close to the efficiency of 16.9% with the DMF solvent that is considered toxic. The researchers used the blade coating method, making perovskite solar cells with DMSO scalable to larger production numbers and suitable for industrial applications.</p>
<p>The new research aims to overcome the challenge posed by DMF to scale up the industrial production of perovskite solar cells. With the DMF solvent, cell manufacturers face the challenge of producing and disposing of large amounts of the solvent. At the same time, additional measures are needed to maintain occupational safety, with high operational costs.</p>
<p>The blade coating technique caters to the scalability factor of perovskite solar cells with DMF, distinguishing the process from spin-coated solar cells with record power conversion efficiencies of 25.7%. While spin coating produces efficient cells, the new research pointed out that this technique cannot be implemented for the industrial production of larger modules.</p>
<p>The team found that DMSO has chemical properties suitable for industrial-scale production. However, the ZMW team observed that DMSO has high surface tension and viscosity resulting in an uneven layer deposition on the solar cell. The scientists noted that dimethyl sulfoxide toughens the crystallization process, leading to small perovskite crystals and a cell that yields less solar energy.</p>
<p>To address the above issues, the researchers modified the film formation process and improved the drying method to increase the efficiency of PSCs produced using dimethyl sulfoxide.</p>
<p>The Head of ZSW&#8217;s Photovoltaics: Materials Research department, Jan-Philipp Becker, says, &#8220;We used a surfactant made of silicon oxide nanoparticles to coat the perovskite solar cell and adapted the drying process. The process now produces uniform layers with large crystallites with these two improvements.&#8221;</p>
<p>Becker and the ZSW team are now studying the optimizing techniques to implement the blade coating procedure in perovskite solar modules as large as 30 by 30 square centimeters made with industrial-grade coating methods.</p>
<p>Researchers worldwide are <a href="https://mercomindia.com/engineers-develop-rapid-printing-method/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">developing</a> new methods like a rapid printing method to maintain the stability of solar cells while achieving improved PCEs.</p>
<p>In another experiment, scientists from the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) <a href="https://mercomindia.com/2d-cations-tin-lead-perovskite-solar-cells/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">developed</a> a new tin-lead perovskite tandem solar cell by combining different layers of two chemical compounds and achieved a power conversion efficiency of 25.5%.</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/gourav-mishra/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Gourav Mishra</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/2022/04/WhatsApp-Image-2022-04-06-at-6.37.25-PM-1-1.jpeg" width="50" /></p>
<p><strong style="text-decoration: underline">Gourav,</strong> Staff reporter at Mercom India<br />
<a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gourav-mishra/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">More articles from Gourav.</a></p>
</div>
<div class="authorboxn"><img class="alignleft" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/WhatsApp-Image-2022-04-06-at-6.37.25-PM-1-1.jpeg" width="89" height="102" /><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gourav-mishra/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gourav</a> is a staff reporter with Mercom India with over six years of experience in various roles with NewsX, The New Indian Express, IBTimes India, and U.S., Republic, and Analytics India Magazine. Gourav has a Master&#8217;s in journalism from Jain University, Bengaluru. <a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gourav-mishra/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">More articles from Gourav Mishra</a></div>
</div></div><div class="clearfix"></div></div></div>

Scientists Use Green Solvent to Achieve 16.7% Efficiency in Perovskite Solar Cells

<p>A team of researchers from the <a href="https://excitonscience.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Australian Research Council Center of Excellence in Exciton Science</a> claimed that they have developed a process that can help enhance the commercial use of perovskite cells. The research tackles bandgap instability due to light-induced phase segregation in mixed-halide perovskites that presents a major challenge for their future commercial use.</p>
<p>According to the research report, light-induced halide segregation is a process that leads to the formation of halide-rich domains and localized variations in the material bandgap. This decreases the charge mobility and carrier lifetime of mixed-halide perovskites.</p>
<p>The researchers explained that high illumination intensities could reverse the photo-induced halide-ion segregation (PHS) to control the bandgap of a mixed-halide perovskite single-crystal through optimizing the input photogenerated carrier density.</p>
<p>“The ability to control the halide-ion composition with light intensity provides new opportunities to utilize mixed-halide perovskites in concentrator as well as tandem solar cells, optical memory applications, and high-power light-emissive devices,” said the researchers.</p>
<p>In the report, the researchers stated that a range of stable photoluminescence (PL) energy could be reached by adjusting the input excitation power, which shows that the halide ion distribution is correlated with the excitation power. Photoluminescence is light emission from any form of matter after the absorption of photons.</p>
<p>The researchers noted that the potential to manipulate the halide-ion distribution with light intensity in perovskites provided a viable method for achieving compositional uniformity in mixed-halide perovskites.</p>
<p>“We provided evidence that the halide-ion distribution in mixed-halide perovskite single crystals can be tuned from a segregated state to a completely homogeneous state by increasing the input carrier density, and we have developed a lattice model that explains this behavior by the presence (or not) of polaron-induced strain gradients,” said the researchers.</p>
<p>In May 2020, the researchers at Iowa State University <a href="https://mercomindia.com/scientists-introduce-way-to-stabilize-perovskite-cells/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">came up</a> with an innovative way to stabilize perovskite cells at high temperatures. They developed a technique that has made the material more stable at higher temperatures.</p>
<p>Previously, Australian scientists, led by members of the ARC Center of Excellence in Exciton Science,<a href="https://mercomindia.com/semi-transparent-perovskite-solar-windows/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> published</a> a research paper stating that they had succeeded in producing semi-transparent perovskite solar cells that generate electricity. This breakthrough could allow for windows in buildings and automobiles to generate electricity.</p>
<p>Image credit: Stephan Kambor, CC BY-SA (<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/125x125-pseudo-square-monocrystalline-solar.cell.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2.5</a>)</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/harsh-shukla/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Harsh Shukla</span></a></div><div class="saboxplugin-desc"><div itemprop="description"><p><img class="alignleft" src="https://mercomindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Harsh-Shukla-293x300-1-new.jpg" width="99" height="102" /><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/harsh-shukla/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong style="color: #00b451">Harsh Shukla</strong> </a>is a staff reporter at Mercom India. Previously with Indian Express, he has covered general interest stories. He holds a Masters Degree in Journalism from Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Pune.</p>
<p><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/harsh-shukla/">More articles from Harsh Shukla.</a></p>
</div></div><div class="clearfix"></div></div></div>

Researchers Develop a Process to Control Instability in Perovskite Solar Cells

perovskites

Get the most relevant India solar and clean energy news.

RECENT POSTS