Streamlining solar cell production
Croucher News has reported before (see here, here, and here) on the drive to scale up manufacture of perovskite solar cells, which are potentially a cheaper and more flexible alternative to the current silicon-based cells used in solar panels.
Back in 2022, we reported on the work of Dr Zonglong Zhu at City University of Hong Kong in this field. His team has now developed an improved way of making perovskite solar cells, which presents significant improvements in stability, reliability, and efficiency of these cells, bringing them closer to commercial viability.
A key innovation by the team is the integration of hole-selective materials (the “hole” is the absence of an electron in a material's atomic structure, which can be transported) with perovskite layers, which simplifies the manufacturing process. A second innovation is the use of tin oxide as an inorganic electron transport layer, which enhances thermal stability.
These improvements eliminate the need for traditional organic transfer layers, reducing material costs and streamlining production. The new technology achieved impressive results, with power conversion efficiencies exceeding 25% and maintaining over 95% efficiency after 2,000 hours of continuous operation under rigorous test conditions. This performance surpasses the stability of conventional solar cells and meets several industry benchmarks for longevity.
The study was recently published in Science, with Dr Danpeng Gao, Dr Bo Li, and Qi Liu cited as the first authors and Zhu as the corresponding author.
The research team, collaborating with international partners, aims to apply this technology to larger solar modules in the next phase of development.