Perovskite Solar - Page 16

Swift Solar has announced the close of its $27 million Series A financing round. The round was co-led by Eni Next and Fontinalis Partners. Also joining the round are new and existing investors including Stanford University, Good Growth Capital, BlueScopeX, HL Ventures, Toba Capital, Sid Sijbrandij, James Fickel, Adam Winkel, Fred Ehrsam, Jonathan Lin, and Climate Capital.

In total, Swift Solar has raised $44 million for its mission to transform the solar energy landscape with perovskite tandem solar products. Proceeds from this round will accelerate Swift Solar’s scaling of efficient and stable tandem technology as the Company prepares to break ground on its first factory. Swift Solar also plans to build a factory in the U.S. in the next two to three years to manufacture thin-film solar.

Researchers from Australia's Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology have reported the fabrication of planar carbon-based perovskite solar cells (c-PSCs) with high efficiency and excellent stability, by employing electrochemically produced large-area phosphorene flakes as a hole-transporting layer (HTL). 

Carbon-based perovskite solar cells have attracted increasing attention due to their many advantages, including: ease of fabrication, the potential of assembling flexible devices, low manufacturing costs and more. However, c-PSCs suffer from limited hole extraction and high charge carrier recombination due to inadequate interface contact between the carbon electrode and perovskite film.

Researchers from Australia's Monash University and CSIRO Manufacturing have reported a lamination technique, known as cold isostatic pressing (CIP), to build a perovskite solar cell based on a flexible bilayer electrode made of carbon and silver. The resulting electrode can reportedly compete with gold-carbon electrode based counterparts in terms of efficiency and stability.

The back side of a C-PSC with a custom-designed electrode after CIP processing. Image credit: Communications Materials

The researchers, led by CSIRO Manufacturing, which is part of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), explained that while perovskite solar cells (PSCs) with evaporated gold (Au) electrodes have shown promising efficiencies, the maturity of the technology still demands low-cost and scalable alternatives to progress towards commercialization. Carbon electrode-based PSCs (C-PSCs) represent a promising alternative, however, optimizing the interface between the hole transport layer (HTL) and the carbon electrode without damaging the underlying functional layers is a persistent challenge, which the team set out to address.

Researchers from the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering at the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently reported a novel perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell based on flexible ultrathin silicon, with a thickness of about 30 µm.

Despite major progress in the efficiency of rigid perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells, flexible perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells have remained elusive. The team explains that this is due to the challenge of enhancing light absorption in ultrathin silicon bottom cells while maintaining their mechanical flexibility.

Researchers at China's Hangzhou Dianzi University have modified the absorber of a conventional perovskite solar cell with potassium trifluoromethanesulfonate (KTFS) and found that the additive improved the device's performance and stability. The cell’s perovskite film reportedly showed less lead defects and lower J-V hysteresis.

“The KTFS molecule is a typical kind of potassium salt including the cationic potassium (K⁺) and anionic trifluoromethanesulfonate (SO3CF3−), indicating a bifunctional interaction between KTFS and perovskite,” the team explained. “The sulfonyl group can passivate the undercoordinated lead of the deep-level defect and thus inhibit the non-radiative recombination.”

Tokyo Chemical Industry (TCI), a global supplier of laboratory chemicals and specialty materials, is offering surface treatment reagents for perovskite solar panels. The company says that using its DMPESI materials, solar panel producers can realize superior device stability.

Figure, Perovskite solar cell device structure and comparison of solar cell performance using DMPESI

TCI's DMPESI materials offer strong bonding ability to perovskite surface, much higher than PEAI. The materials suppress the phase transition of FAPbI3 from α phase to δ phase. Thanks to the suppression of ion migration and the influence of the external atmosphere, the materials improve device stability even under high temperature and humidity.

Contact TCI now for more information on its DMPESI reagents.

Researchers at CHOSE (Centre for Hybrid and Organic Solar Energy) at University of Rome ‘‘Tor Vergata’’ and Solertix (affiliated with Italy-based solar manufacturer FuturaSun) have reported reduced yield losses in cell-to-module scaling by utilizing ultranarrow interconnection of 19.5 μm. 

In addition, the proposed interconnection technique may be used to achieve a 30% efficiency in area-matched 4T tandem designs featuring a perovskite module over a silicon cell.

According to reports by the Ural Federal University (UrFU), a consortium of universities in Russia has won a grant to create solar panels that could work in space for at least 20 years. 

The work will be carried out in 2024-2026. The total amount of financing will be about 300 million rubles (over USD$3,300,000). The purpose of the grant is to create solar panels capable of operating in conditions of cosmic radiation, with a high efficiency and energy efficiency.

Researchers from Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) and Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energies (HI ERN) have developed a new recycling method for MAPbI₃ perovskite solar cells that uses a layer-by-layer solvent extraction technique. This process has shown the potential to recycle up to 99.97% of the material, aiming to reduce waste and conserve resources. 

The technique involves separating each layer of the solar cell, followed by processes to purify or modify the materials so they can be reused.

TandemPV has announced that it was selected to receive a $4.7 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to pursue commercialization of its thin-film solar photovoltaic technology. 

The selected project will help TandemPV prove out its pairing of conventional silicon solar with perovskite materials for panels that have the potential to be up to 40% more powerful than those used today.