Perovskite, which can be made using industrial chemicals and common metals, has been investigated as an alternative material for solar cells, but its main drawback is its instability.
Now, a team of researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden, Aalto University in Finland, and Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland think they could solve the problem by using carbon nanotubes (CNTs).
Materials World Magazine reported on the breakthrough, whereby random network CNT films are used in place of the gold that’s used on the back contact and the organic material in the hole conductor.
According to the scientists, this has increased the longevity of the cells, with lead author of the paper Kerttu Aitola from Uppsala University noting that this “achieved good cell stability at 60 degrees and full one-sun illumination conditions”.
During the experiment, the team found that the standard gold contact showed substantial degradation, while the CNTs “retained most of their performance”.
While this is promising in terms of the life of solar cells, the overall conversion efficiency of the CNT perovskite cells comes in at 16 per cent, slightly lower than the 18 per cent recorded for the original perovskite cells.
This European team isn’t the only one looking into the properties of perovskite for energy generation. Earlier this year, a team at the UT Dallas Nano-Tech Institute started investigating alternative solar cell materials.
Deputy director at the institute Professor Anvar Zakhidov told EE News Europe that perovskites have many exciting physical properties that lend themselves to solar energy generation.
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