An international collaboration led by Antonio Abate, HZB, and Zhao-Kui Wang, Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Soochow University, China, has achieved a breakthrough that opens up a path to non-toxic perovskite-based solar cells that provides stable performance over a long period.

They use tin instead of lead but have created a two-dimensional structure by inserting organic groups within the material, which leads to so-called 2D Ruddlesden-Popper phases.

EU H2020-funded project PeroCUBE aims at developing flexible, lightweight perovskite-based electronics, creating new commercial opportunities for the lighting, energy and telecom industries. Coordinated by the Swiss CSEM, this consortium brings together 14 industrial and academic partners from 10 European countries.

PeroCUBE has two main objectives: producing efficient, simple and low-cost light sources closer to natural light sources and supporting the development of more stable and low-cost solar panels. By combining these promising technologies, PeroCUBE seeks to develop a new generation of Visual Light Communication (VLC) and LiFi (light fidelity) standard, widening the scope for human centric lighting (HCL), data transmission, wearables and IOT applications that do not cause harm to humans nor the environment.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have used an oxide of perovskite to create an oxygen electrode for use in electrochemical cells used for hydrolysis-based hydrogen production.

The researchers claim the perovskite oxide could help such cells convert hydrogen and oxygen into electricity without additional hydrogen.

An international team of scientists recently developed a new composite material based on perovskite nanocrystals to fabricate miniature light sources with improved performance.

Protection of perovskite nanocrystals within porous glass microspheres made it possible to increase their stability by almost 3 times. Moreover, the subsequent coating of these particles with polymers resulted in the fabrication of water-dispersible luminescent microspheres based on CsPbBr₃ nanocrystals. This method of fabrication is especially important for the implementation of perovskite nanocrystals in diverse biological applications.

A Purdue University-led research team discovered that adding a rigid bulky molecule ' bithiophenylethylammonium ' to the surface of a perovskite stabilizes the movement of ions, preventing chemical bonds from breaking easily. The researchers also demonstrated that adding this molecule makes a perovskite stable enough to form clean atomic junctions with other perovskites, allowing them to stack and integrate.

'If an engineer wanted to combine the best parts about perovskite A with the best parts about perovskite B, that typically can't happen because the perovskites would just mix together,' said Brett Savoie, a Purdue assistant professor of chemical engineering. 'In this case, you really can get the best of A and B in a single material. That is completely unheard of.'

Rice University researchers have created an efficient, low-cost device that splits water to produce hydrogen fuel. The platform integrates catalytic electrodes and perovskite solar cells that, when triggered by sunlight, produce electricity. The current flows to the catalysts that turn water into hydrogen and oxygen, with a sunlight-to-hydrogen efficiency as high as 6.7%.

Iowa State University engineers, in a project partially supported by the National Science Foundation, have found a way to take advantage of perovskite's useful properties while stabilizing the cells at high temperatures.

Vikram Dalal, an Iowa State University Professor in Engineering and corresponding author of the paper, said there are two key developments in the new solar cell technology: First, he said the engineers made some tweaks to the makeup of the perovskite material. They got rid of the organic components in the material ' particularly cations, materials with extra protons and a positive charge ' and substituted inorganic materials such as cesium. That made the material stable at higher temperatures.

Scientists from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (South Korea), Hanwha Solution (South Korea), Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (South Korea), Imperial College London, Stony Brook University and U.S. Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new material processing protocol to boost the operational stability of planar hybrid perovskite solar cells.

A schematic showing the vacuum and solvent process for removing the ionic defects that reduce the performance of hybrid perovskite solar cells.

Typically, thin-film devices are made in solution by sandwiching the active light-absorbing material in between top and bottom metal electrical contacts (electrodes) and organic semiconductor interlayers, which enhance the extraction of electrical currents to the contacts. In this case, before putting the final electrode on top, the scientists put the device in vacuum. In prior experiments, the team had noticed that removing and then redepositing the top electrode and interlayer reduced burn-in loss, a rapid decrease in efficiency at the beginning of light illumination. They subsequently confirmed that the high-vacuum environment used to deposit the electrode had contributed to this reduction. During vacuum curing, loose ions emerge from the perovskite and concentrate at the top interlayer. In a second processing step, the scientists used a chemical solvent to selectively wash away this top layer.

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has established a public-private consortium called the US-MAP for US Manufacturing of Advanced Perovskites Consortium, that aims to fast track the development of low-cost perovskite solar cells for the global marketplace.

The joint effort will aim at resolving a number of issues involving manufacturing and durability. US-MAP will also tackle sustainability issues, some of which relate to the use of lead and other metals.