Improved tin perovskite solar cells accomplish greater than 1,300 hrs of operational stability

• A study team led by Professor Iván Mora Seró from the Institute of Advanced Materials (INAM) of the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló has taken care of to improve the effectiveness and durability of tin perovskite solar cells.

Specifically, they have actually gone beyond 1,300 hours of operational stability, the highest recognized to day, thanks to the consolidation of additives in the prep work of the devices. The research study was published this week in the sustainable power journal Joule.

Tin-based halide perovskites have become appealing prospects to relieve the toxicity problems connected with lead-based perovskites, whose toxicity is a handicap for their exploitation for technological purposes. Derivatives of various other elements such as antimony, bismuth, copper, germanium or tin, which are less hazardous, are presently being explored. When it comes to tin, a performance of more than 14% has actually been accomplished up until now, however it has serious stability problems.

This work has actually introduced, for the first time, a mix of dipropylammonium iodide and also sodium borohydride, 2 additives that have made it possible to prepare devices with photoconversion efficiencies (PCE) of more than 10%, which attract attention for their better stability and also which have actually preserved 96% of the first PCE after 1,300 hrs under solar illumination in a nitrogen ambience. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the highest possible value known for solar cells based upon tin perovskite. "We have discovered that the control of halide chemistry is a crucial facet in marking the efficiency of tin-based perovskite solar cells as well as optoelectronic devices," states scientist Iván Mora Seró.

Although the stability of halide perovskite semiconductors as well as devices under operating problems is still far from being competitive with silicon modern technologies (currently the most widely used in photovoltaics), "outcomes supply valuable information as well as suggest the direction that research study should take to attain a lot more reliable additives that control halide chemistry and also their access right into the photovoltaic modern technology market," explains Iván Mora Seró, the scientist responsible for the research study along with Dr. Rafael S. Sánchez.