Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GNPs4PVs (Graphene NanoPlatelets current collectors based fully Printable Passivated Perovskite PhotoVoltaics)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2021-09-01 do 2023-08-31
Photovoltaics hold the promise to solve the climate crisis, due to their eco-friendly character, as one of the renewable technologies with the lowest carbon footprint. However, the current prices and the low manufacturing throughput of Silicon solar panels (the dominant technology of the PV market) holds their widespead development across the planet. Among the different alternative PV technologies that show great promise for commercialization replacing silicon, is perovskite PVs, due to their solution processability combined with efficiencies comparable to silicon. This makes perovskite PVs ideal candidates with a potential for high throughput low cost panel manufacturing. However, the fact that high efficiency perovskite PVs repy on gold as the current collecting electrode, this makes them less competitive towards low cost (gold is expensive raw material) and high throughput manufacturing (gold requires thermal evaporation). Thus, finding an alternative printalbe low cost material to replace gold as the current collecting electrode in perovskite PVs, without compromising their performance, will consist perovskite PV superior compared to the traditional silicon solar panels. Such an demonstration would enable the widespreade development of solar panels as the major source for the generation of electricity in commercial, utility and residential scale. Additionally, the significantly lower carbon footprint of a printable current collector (compared to the thermally evaporated gold counterparts) will have a significant impact on further reducing the carbon footprint of solar panels during their manufacturing phase. Furthermore, the development of perovskite PV, will also benefit the adoption of solar panels on other fields such such portable devices, airplanes, electric vehicles, satelites, etc. due to their significantly lower weight (i.e. higher power-per-weight output) as a thin film PV technology (which does not rely on thic wafers). To achieve the afforementioned, novel graphene-based printable electrodes/current collectors, due to their high conductivity, will be developed and tested in perovskite solar cells with the aim to achieve high performances (~20% in small area cells), high operational stabilities (comparable with silicon) and significant power-per weight outputs. As a conclusion, GNPs4PVs demontrated efficiencies up to 19.2% accompanied with thermal stabilities of >1000 hours and also demonstrated the huge potential of of graphene in perovskite solar cells for high power-per-weight solar cells and towards reducing the operational temperature of these devices.
GNPs4PVs focused on four different topics, i.e. 1) the development of the experimental protocol towards achieving highly efficient (higher than 24% efficiencies achieved) and stable (>500 hours) perovskite solar cells with gold as the current collecting electrode and novel surface passivation strategies as a baseline; 2) the development and optimization of highly efficient perovskite solar cells based on graphene as current collecting electrodes with efficiencies of >19% on small scale (i.e ~1 cm2) and high thermal stabilities of over 1000 hours and 3) the demonstration of graphene as an enabling electrode to achieve ultra-high power-per-weight outputs in perovskite solar cells and 4) a novel substrate cofiguration which can reduce the temperature of graphene or carbon-based perovskite solar cells. The results produced by GNPs4PVs were publised in peer-reviewed journals, presented in two international conferences and the European Researcher's night. Finally, it is possible that these results can be exploited for the development of of spin-out company as they represent sigificant breakthough in the field of perovskite solar cells towards highly stable and efficient PVs.
As demonstrated during GNPs4PVs, graphene-based pritable current collecting electrodes are ideal candidates to promote the industrialization of perovskite PV as they can provide high efficiency and stable solar cells combined with significantly lower cost and carbon footprint compared to their gold based counterparts. Additionally, it was demostrated that graphene can provide added values in perovskite solar cells such as increasing power per weight outputs and in combination with novel substrates can reduce the operational temperature of perovskite PVs. Thus, the commercial potential of graphene-based perovskite PVs can be significant as these solar cells can be used to replace the typical silicon solar panels for solar energy generation but also become enabling technologies for IoT, portable electronics, electric vehicles, satelites, drones, etc.