KRICT team demonstrates 'roll-to-roll' manufacturing of flexible perovskite solar cells

Researchers at South Korea's KRICT, led by Seo Jang-won, have demonstrated pilot-scale "roll-to-roll" (R2R) manufacturing of flexible and light perovskite solar cells.

As an eco-friendly antisolvent, Seo's team introduced tert-butyl alcohol (tBuOH), a colorless solid, which melts near room temperature and has a camphor-like odor, for R2R processing through cooperation with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

"We demonstrated R2R-processed flexible PSCs at pilot scale through gravure-printing, antisolvent bathing, and subsequent annealing process," Seo's team said. "We believe that this work will pave a new way for high throughput, low-cost production of flexible PSCs at larger scale via R2R processes in the near future."

Based on a well-bending polymer substrate, Seo's team has developed a perovskite solar cell with an efficiency of 20.7%, along with a technology that can increase efficiency even at low temperatures.

Electronic transport layers in solar cells are duplicated into layers with dense tin oxide particles and porous layers with zinc oxide particles, allowing electrons to move actively. The research team said that electronic movement was activated at the perovskite layer, which is formed on the upper layer of the electron transport layer.