28 million to research on perovskite solar cells
Just a moment ... Gerrit Boschloo at the Department of Chemistry-Ångström who has received SEK 28 million in framework grant from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, SSF, for the project "Production methods for stable perovskite solar cells". The Boschloo group will collaborate with researchers at Ångström as well as KTH and the Swedish research institute Swerea IVF.
Congratulations! How does it feel?
‘Thank you very much, it feels very good! I didn’t expect to receive a grant. There was a long silence before the announcement, so it came as a very pleasant surprise.’
Your previous research focus has been dye-sensitized solar cells – how come you’re now working on perovskite solar-cells?
‘My group has been working on this material since 2012, which was the year of the first publications on efficient perovskite solar cells. We were involved in a European project with Oxford University, and it was actually at Uppsala University that Henry Snaith, (British physicist who founded Oxford Photovoltaics Ltd. to commercialize perovskite solar cells,Ed.), and his research team disclosed the results for the first time. We were of course very excited and started doing research on perovskite as well.’
What research results did the team present at Uppsala University?
‘They showed solar cells with more than 10 percent efficiency based on hybrid perovskite materials. The perovskite used is a hybrid, consisting of an inorganic part, lead and iodide, and an organic part: methyl ammonium. It does contain lead, which isn’t optimal from an environmental viewpoint, but apparently needed in this structure. Hopefully, we’ll be able to replace it. The hybrid perovskite is a semiconductor with excellent properties.
The nice thing is that this material is quite flexible. We can exchange part of it and tune its properties, including changing the band gap and the absorption properties. We can also make perovskite without high temperatures. Silicon, which is the most common semi-conductor in solar cells, requires very high temperatures and much energy. To make perovskite solar cells, you simply put the different components in a solution, spread it out and warm it to about 100 degrees Celsius – then you have your material. This really opens up the possibility of producing very low-cost solar cells.
Although these are solar cells that everybody can make, we still don’t understand how to optimize the perovskite material. Sometimes it works very nicely, sometimes not at all. The major challenge is to control every aspect of it and improve the properties in order to make long-term stable solar cells.’
Will you invest in any additional equipment for this project?
‘We have the basic equipment we need here at Ångström. But in order to make the equipment more reproducible, we will also invest in a kind of printing technique for controlled, low-cost preparation of perovskite material.
Most of the framework grant will go to additional staff in Uppsala and at the partner groups. In order to optimize the perovskite, we need to work on synthesis as well as characterization to see which combinations of materials will give us the best results.’
Perovskite has been called a revolutionary material and the future of solar cells – why has it spurred such interest?
‘It has already shown its potential in labs all over the world. Reports talk about efficiencies of up to 20 percent. Even in our own lab we’ve reached an efficiency of 17.6 percent with relatively little effort which is very promising. It’s really approaching the efficiencies that you can get with silicon solar cells, but at a much lower cost.’
What are the areas of use for perovskite?
‘The first area we of course are interested in is making solar cells. But this material has other potential areas of application. It also has good luminescence properties so maybe this can be interesting for light-emitting diodes, LED, but that is not our research focus.’
Any particular wish for this project?
‘What we want to do is useful research. There’s a lot of competition in this area. Hundreds of people are working on the same topic so it’s important to have a good strategy. But I hope we’ll be able to find our own course and contribute to the field, and that the results will not only be unique but will benefit society and result in some industrial activity.’
Read more:
600 miljoner kronor till svensk toppforskning
Contact information Gerrit Boschloo
Presentation of Boschloo group
Anneli Björkman