Periodic Reporting for period 1 - VIPERLAB (Fully connected virtual and physical perovskite photovoltaics lab)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2021-06-01 do 2022-11-30
Within only a few years of systematic research, the unprecedented rise of metal halide perovskites as a new class of photovoltaic materials offers new avenues in the photovoltaic roadmap as they enable surpassing the efficiencies of established single-junction technologies such as Si and CIGSe. Although perovskite-based single and tandem devices have reached very high efficiencies in lab-scale devices, the technology does not yet fulfill the requirements for mass production, especially in view of manufacturability, sustainability, and stability.
The VIPERLAB project aims to stimulate EU academic and industrial researchers to join forces in the research and development of the next generation of solar cell technology through facilitated and coordinated access to the best European perovskite infrastructures and the use of advanced data mining approaches. Top-level material synthesis, state-of-the-art device design, and development, as well as standardized testing methods, simulation methods, and databases will be the main services offered for researchers in academia and industry in order to validate at the lab- and pre-industrial-scale the perovskite technology.
The main goal of VIPERLAB is to create and offer a well-coordinated and integrated European Perovskite Research Infrastructure environment. To reach this goal, VIPERLAB has set the following three objectives:
1. Combine European top-ranked, relevant, and complementary perovskite PV infrastructures, both physical and virtual, to foster perovskite solar cells and module development. Facilitate access to these perovskite-focused infrastructures for the community of EU material and PV-oriented academia and industry/SME.
2. Connect and support the starting European perovskite community through physical and virtual infrastructures and through targeted networking activities.
3. Further develop physical and virtual perovskite infrastructures, build an up-to-date database on materials and devices, on long-term performance, and on environmental and economic impact (enabling evidence-based commercial and political decision-making).
The VIPERLAB project aims to stimulate EU academic and industrial researchers to join forces in the research and development of the next generation of solar cell technology through facilitated and coordinated access to the best European perovskite infrastructures and the use of advanced data mining approaches. Top-level material synthesis, state-of-the-art device design, and development, as well as standardized testing methods, simulation methods, and databases will be the main services offered for researchers in academia and industry in order to validate at the lab- and pre-industrial-scale the perovskite technology.
The main goal of VIPERLAB is to create and offer a well-coordinated and integrated European Perovskite Research Infrastructure environment. To reach this goal, VIPERLAB has set the following three objectives:
1. Combine European top-ranked, relevant, and complementary perovskite PV infrastructures, both physical and virtual, to foster perovskite solar cells and module development. Facilitate access to these perovskite-focused infrastructures for the community of EU material and PV-oriented academia and industry/SME.
2. Connect and support the starting European perovskite community through physical and virtual infrastructures and through targeted networking activities.
3. Further develop physical and virtual perovskite infrastructures, build an up-to-date database on materials and devices, on long-term performance, and on environmental and economic impact (enabling evidence-based commercial and political decision-making).
In the first period of the project, the VIPERLAB consortium executed a wide range of project activities.
Firstly, we established all digital infrastructure and procedures to enable transnational access and virtual access to VIPERLAB infrastructures:
- The VIPERLAB-GATE platform to centrally collect, handle and evaluate user proposals for any of the 13 physical and 4 virtual VIPERLAB infrastructures designed for perovskite-based research from simulations and characterization to the manufacture of solar cells or modules;
- A knowledge exchange platform – KEP - (viperlab-kep.eu) that provides detailed information about services and possibilities of each VIPERLAB facility, about the expertise and contacts of the instrument scientists ready to support interested users with their project implementation as well as guidelines and useful tips about the submission process of VIPERLAB calls; and
- A transparent procedure for the administration and communication of the entire chain of the VIPERLAB calls from submission down to reporting of the created scientific output.
With all of this in place and communication measures to inform the user community about the VIPERLAB infrastructure abilities, we successfully concluded the first annual call for user proposals granting 42 users from 20 countries access and financial support to implement their projects.
Second, VIPERLAB has started a series of activities - much needed by the European perovskite community - to define harmonized procedures and protocols for testing perovskite PV devices. Existing procedures and "best practices" of the European Joint Research Centre, accredited test laboratories, industry, and research representatives were compared in topical workshops and VIPERLAB partners have been running two round robins on the characterization and aging of perovskite devices. This resulted in harmonized test protocols. These efforts are in progress and planned to diversify by extending the round-robin tests to stability testing also under outdoor conditions.
Finally, to help the perovskite-based technology to mature and conquer both the market and the attention of policymakers, VIPERLAB initiated the first-period activities aiming at analysis of the environmental and social impact assessment for certain device architectures. For this purpose, VIPERLAB creates databases of materials, processes, performance, durability, life cycle assessment, and cost of perovskite technology. In parallel, workshops were organized to stimulate strategic discussions between VIPERLAB partners, EU interlocutors, initiatives, and research associations.
Firstly, we established all digital infrastructure and procedures to enable transnational access and virtual access to VIPERLAB infrastructures:
- The VIPERLAB-GATE platform to centrally collect, handle and evaluate user proposals for any of the 13 physical and 4 virtual VIPERLAB infrastructures designed for perovskite-based research from simulations and characterization to the manufacture of solar cells or modules;
- A knowledge exchange platform – KEP - (viperlab-kep.eu) that provides detailed information about services and possibilities of each VIPERLAB facility, about the expertise and contacts of the instrument scientists ready to support interested users with their project implementation as well as guidelines and useful tips about the submission process of VIPERLAB calls; and
- A transparent procedure for the administration and communication of the entire chain of the VIPERLAB calls from submission down to reporting of the created scientific output.
With all of this in place and communication measures to inform the user community about the VIPERLAB infrastructure abilities, we successfully concluded the first annual call for user proposals granting 42 users from 20 countries access and financial support to implement their projects.
Second, VIPERLAB has started a series of activities - much needed by the European perovskite community - to define harmonized procedures and protocols for testing perovskite PV devices. Existing procedures and "best practices" of the European Joint Research Centre, accredited test laboratories, industry, and research representatives were compared in topical workshops and VIPERLAB partners have been running two round robins on the characterization and aging of perovskite devices. This resulted in harmonized test protocols. These efforts are in progress and planned to diversify by extending the round-robin tests to stability testing also under outdoor conditions.
Finally, to help the perovskite-based technology to mature and conquer both the market and the attention of policymakers, VIPERLAB initiated the first-period activities aiming at analysis of the environmental and social impact assessment for certain device architectures. For this purpose, VIPERLAB creates databases of materials, processes, performance, durability, life cycle assessment, and cost of perovskite technology. In parallel, workshops were organized to stimulate strategic discussions between VIPERLAB partners, EU interlocutors, initiatives, and research associations.
Perovskite PV technology illustrates the challenges in accelerating the transfer from materials innovations in laboratories to grid-scale power generation. At the academic level, intense efforts have created enormous amounts of scientific results that boosted the conversion efficiency of perovskite-based devices now on par with established PV technologies such as silicon, CdTe, or CIGSe. VIPERLAB is instrumental in further developing Perovskite PV beyond the state-of-the-art by providing access to research infrastructure, consolidating manufacturing and measuring standards, and providing data infrastructure to collect research output in line with FAIR data principles.
To date, experimental results are made public in a distributed fashion. What is underutilized is making use of all results and data generated in research laboratories globally available. To this end, VIPERLAB is making use of an existing Literature Database for Perovskite PV but expanding it by:
- Defining a unified data ontology for perovskite PV technology research that can be expanded to other PV technologies
- Creating an open-access database for materials, processes, performance, durability, life cycle assessment, and cost of perovskite technology based on existing data infrastructure made available in the german FAIRmat project to ensure infrastructure maintenance beyond the duration of VIPERLAB
Furthermore, VIPERLAB has been reviewing guidelines for performance testing and aging protocols and assesses their viability through round-robin experiments to refine such protocols by the end of the project. The project is also comparing device and module designs between partners to devise architectures that may become industrial standards.
To support the activities of VIPERLAB two digital platforms were created that can likely operate with little maintenance effort even beyond the VIPERLAB project:
- VIPERLAB Knowledge exchange platform (viperlab-kep.eu) that offers a dynamic database of different EU infrastructures with details about their services, and possibilities;
- an online platform (VIPERLAB(GATE)) that now includes infrastructures from 13 different research institutes and can be always extended. This GATE platform connects the direct request for user access to the instrument scientists and peer reviewers through a transparent submission process;
- harmonized services for infrastructure access that is now steadily improving that can be easily transferred to different than GATE platforms or projects.
What we hope to add to these achievements in the second part of the project is to evaluate the benefits of these tools and services on user research as well as the impact of these outcomes on the perovskite field in Europe.
To date, experimental results are made public in a distributed fashion. What is underutilized is making use of all results and data generated in research laboratories globally available. To this end, VIPERLAB is making use of an existing Literature Database for Perovskite PV but expanding it by:
- Defining a unified data ontology for perovskite PV technology research that can be expanded to other PV technologies
- Creating an open-access database for materials, processes, performance, durability, life cycle assessment, and cost of perovskite technology based on existing data infrastructure made available in the german FAIRmat project to ensure infrastructure maintenance beyond the duration of VIPERLAB
Furthermore, VIPERLAB has been reviewing guidelines for performance testing and aging protocols and assesses their viability through round-robin experiments to refine such protocols by the end of the project. The project is also comparing device and module designs between partners to devise architectures that may become industrial standards.
To support the activities of VIPERLAB two digital platforms were created that can likely operate with little maintenance effort even beyond the VIPERLAB project:
- VIPERLAB Knowledge exchange platform (viperlab-kep.eu) that offers a dynamic database of different EU infrastructures with details about their services, and possibilities;
- an online platform (VIPERLAB(GATE)) that now includes infrastructures from 13 different research institutes and can be always extended. This GATE platform connects the direct request for user access to the instrument scientists and peer reviewers through a transparent submission process;
- harmonized services for infrastructure access that is now steadily improving that can be easily transferred to different than GATE platforms or projects.
What we hope to add to these achievements in the second part of the project is to evaluate the benefits of these tools and services on user research as well as the impact of these outcomes on the perovskite field in Europe.