Low-cost, nontoxic, highly stable industrial organic pigments are utilized as surface passivation agents for perovskite solar cells (PSCs).
Next-generation thin-film perovskite solar cells have been shown to have major advantages over their silicon-based counterparts. They are low-cost, highly efficient, and are simple to synthesize from earth-abundant materials. However, to become truly competitive with current on-the-market solar cells, PSCs need to overcome the challenge of long-term stability while maintaining their ability to be mass-produced.
Dr. Biwu Ma of Florida State University has developed a method to apply a layer of organic pigments to PSCs as a passivation agent, increasing the useable lifespan of these solar cells. The pigments are well-known, low-cost, and have been shown to improve the efficiency PSCs; in one experiment, the efficiency of a solar cell was increased from 18.9% to 21.1% with the application of the pigment.
The pigments are applied via solution processing of soluble pigment derivatives followed by thermal annealing to convert them into insoluble coating. This enables effective passivation through strong interactions organic pigments and the metal halides of the solar cell. Together with the hydrophobicity of the coating, this enables highly efficient PSCs with remarkable stability.
News article: https://news.fsu.edu/news/science-technology/2020/12/01/fsu-chemistry-professor-uses-old-materials-to-make-newer-better-solar-cells/
