Perovskite Solar - Page 51

Chinese perovskite solar technology company Renshine Solar (Suzhou) has announced 29.0% steady-state power conversion efficiency of all-perovskite tandem solar cell developed in-house. The company now expects to exceed 30% in 2023.

Japan Electrical Safety and Environment Technology Laboratories (JET) has reportedly certified the efficiency claim that was reported for a designated area of 0.04888 cm².

University of Sydney's Professor Anita Ho-Baillie is joining forces with Sydney-based renewable technology company SunDrive to commercialize perovskite-silicon cells, with backing from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) of AUD$2.78 million (over USD$1.9 million).

Other investigators on the project include Professor David McKenzie, Dr Jianghui Zheng and Dr Arafat Mahmud, who are based at the University of Sydney, and Mr Vince Allen, Mr David Hu and Professor Alison Lennon from SunDrive.

Warwick University has been granted £2.2 million (over USD$2,620,000) to investigate metal halide perovskite compounds, for use in transparent and flexible solar panels, which remain stable in space. A new Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometer will be used to understand how to increase lifespan and durability of these solar cells.

The European Research Council (ERC) has approved a five-year study which will explore the atomic-level structure of perovskite solar cell materials. This will address issues including stability and lifespan of metal halide perovskite compounds, which decrease in high humidity, strong sunlight and at elevated temperatures.

Researchers from Singapore's Nanyang Technological University have examined how thermal evaporation (TE) could be used to fabricate mini perovskite solar modules. TE are mature techniques that are commonly used in the microelectronic and optoelectronic industries to produce organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), metal contacts, and various coatings.

The research team analyzed the use of several evaporation-based techniques to fabricate halide perovskite thin films, from the relatively simple single-source deposition and multi-source co-evaporation to the more complex multistep evaporation and hybrids of thermal evaporation with gas reaction and solution processing. The team explained that this combined approach exploits the advantages of both methods, but also has some limitations, such as increased complexity and the use of solvents.

Reports suggest that the Tokyo metropolitan government will start joint research with a major Japanese chemical maker on perovskite-based solar cells, that are film-thin, lightweight and bendable, as part of its efforts to promote the use of renewable energy.

The metropolitan government expects that the next-generation solar cells, due to their characteristics, can be used in a wider range of locations compared with current mainstream solar panels.

A team of researchers at EPFL have developed a method that improves both power conversion efficiency and stability of solar cells based on pure iodide as well as mixed-halide perovskites. The new method aslo suppresses halide phase segregation in the perovskite material. The research was carried out by the groups of Professors Michael Grätzel and Ursula Rothlisberger at EPFL and led by Dr Essa A. Alharbi and Dr Lukas Pfeifer.

The method treats perovskite solar cells with two alkylammonium halide modulators that work synergistically to improve solar cell performance. The modulators were used as passivators, compounds used to mitigate defects in perovskites, which are otherwise promoting the aforementioned degradation pathways.

Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and University of Toledo have developed a new approach to manufacturing perovskite solar cells.

Developing highly stable and efficient perovskites based on a rich mixture of bromine and iodine is considered critical for the creation of tandem solar cells. However, issues with the two elements separating under solar cell operational conditions, such as light and heat, limit the device voltage and operational stability. This challenge is often made worse by the ready defect formation associated with the rapid crystallization of bromine-rich perovskite chemistry with antisolvent processes.

Researchers from Monash University, Wuhan University of Technology, CSIRO Manufacturing, The Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication and Foshan Xianhu Laboratory of the Advanced Energy Science and Technology Guangdong Laboratory have demonstrated "the first effective use of lead acetate as a precursor in making formamidinium-caesium perovskite solar cells". This could lead to a new way of creating durable, efficient perovskite photovoltaics at industrial scale.

Members of Exciton Science, based at Monash University, were able to create perovskite solar cells with 21% efficiency, which they say are the best results ever recorded for a device made from a non-halide lead source.

Researchers from Saule Research Institute, Saule Technologies, Centre for Hybrid and Organic Solar Energy (CHOSE), CNR-SCITEC, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology and Poznan University of Technology have demonstrated an effective strategy to improve the technical aspects of flexible perovskite solar cells,  improving the reliability and efficiency values of these devices.

The team applies large organic ammonium molecules for modifying a buried interface between a hole-transporting layer (HTL) and perovskite-absorbing material. With the 4-fluorophenethylammonium iodide (FPEAI), they achieved 18.66% efficiency for the large-area (1 cm²) flexible solar cell, a significant improvement over the pristine device without modification.

Researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) recently announced a new tandem solar cell that converts 32.5% of the incident solar radiation into electrical energy.

The certifying institute European Solar Test Installation (ESTI) in Italy measured the tandem cell and officially confirmed this value which is also included in the NREL chart of solar cell technologies, maintained by the National Renewable Energy Lab, USA.