Researchers in China have found better ways to make perovskite / CIGS tandem solar cells and hit a new efficiency record with flexible cells.
Researchers at the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found a new way to stick different layers of tandem solar cell s and achieved a new efficiency record.
The achievement paves the way for low-cost, high-performance tandem solar cells that could be commercialized in the future, a press release said. In our bid to harness clean energy from the Sun, we have built many solar power plants in various parts of the world. As the energy demand grows, more power plants will need to be built. However, these large-capacity plants also occupy large tracts of land, eventually competing with other human functions like agriculture and industry as the human population grows. A major reason solar power plants need to be large is the solar cells’ limited efficiency. Commercially deployed solar cells have a maximum efficiency of 22 percent. Nearly 80 percent of the light the power plants receive does not convert into usable electricity. Researchers are trying to change this with newer approaches, such as tandem solar cells. Flexible tandem solar cellsResearchers are working on tandem or multi-junction solar cells to overcome the limited efficiencies of single-junction solar cells. Solar cells with different bandgaps or energy-absorbing abilities are stacked on each other in this setup. Top cells usually absorb higher energy light while bottom cells absorb lower energy light, thereby increasing the cell’s overall efficiency. Copper indium gallium selenide is one such semiconductor known for its adjustable bandgap and is being used to build commercial tandem solar cells. To increase the possible applications of solar cell technology, researchers are also working to make them flexible so that they can be deployed over curved surfaces. Researchers have attempted to combine the CIGS layer with a perovskite top layer to make high-efficiency tandem flexible solar cells. However, the commercialization of such solar cells has hit a hurdle since the CIGS and perovskite layers can’t be glued well together due to the rough nature of the CIGS layer. High-efficiency solar cells could help reduce the size of power plants in the future. Image credit: audioundwerbung/iStockPolarity solvents to the rescue A research team led by YE Jichun, a professor at NIMTE in China, used a high-polarity solvent to prevent the clustering of the self-assembled monolayer adsorption, effectively separating the process from the dissolution step. The team then used a low-polarity solvent to allow the formation of a dense layer of SAM during the adsorption process. To ensure that the perovskite adheres to the substrate, the team used a pre-mixed seed layer that improved the crystallinity and wettability of the layer. To demonstrate that their solutions can solve the problem they were trying to address, the researchers fabricated a flexible monolithic perovskite/CIGS tandem solar cell about 1.09 sq. cm in size. It achieved a stabilized efficiency of 24.6 percent, one of the highest on record for flexible solar cells. The researchers operated the solar cell for over 300 hours and put it through 3,000 bending cycles at a radius of one cm. At the end of the test, the cells retained 90 percent of their initial efficiency, showcasing stability and mechanical durability. The research also shows that flexible tandem solar cells with higher energy conversion efficiency can be built at commercial scales in the future.The research findings were published in the journal Nature Energy.
Efficiency Energy &Amp Environment Flexible Solar Cells Inventions And Machines Perovskite Solar Cell Tandem Solar Cell
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