Solar panels help humanity reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. But modern panels are also hardly environmentally friendly. Scientists have developed more practical and environmentally friendly solar cells, which are made from inexpensive materials - halide perovskites. They have developed perovskite solar cells with a reduced lead content and an energy conversion efficiency of 15%.
Researchers reported on their achievements in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The new development makes it possible to hope for the emergence of a worthy replacement for modern silicon-based photocells, which are quite expensive and require a lot of energy for their production.
Instead, scientists have proposed a hybrid combination of materials, which includes organic and inorganic components - a combination of lead with halide perovskites. The production of such solar panels will reduce costs, using less energy than is necessary for the production of silicon panels.
Over the past few years, the effectiveness of these materials has increased significantly. Further improvement of the efficiency of this technology requires for the formation of a dual cell the connection of two subcells — a wide bandgap from the top and a low bandgap from the bottom.
The bandgap determines the smallest energy that can be sensed by a semiconductor. For many years, the possibilities of narrow-gap perovskite cells were a gap in scientific research. But scientists decided to eliminate this gap.
For the newly created solar cells, scientists have developed a new source solution of formamidine tin iodide and methyl ammonium lead iodide. The result was narrow-gap perovskite cells made using a combination of tin and lead, characterized, as noted above, by a 15 percent energy conversion efficiency. It should be noted that other researchers previously reported on the achievement of energy conversion efficiency by narrow-gap cells by approximately 13.6%.
An additional advantage of new solar cells is that they contain 60% less lead than solitary — not double, as in the technology developed by scientists — lead-based solar perovskite cells. However, the maximum efficiency of energy conversion in such cells is higher and can reach 22.1%.
Researchers note that reducing lead levels and improving the efficiency of narrow-gap cells is a significant practical step towards creating more environmentally friendly dual perovskite solar cells.
Based on sciencedaily.com
The article is based on materials .
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