The Perovskite-Info newsletter (September 6, 2022)

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and Purdue University have developed a machine learning method for screening many thousands of compounds as solar absorbers. Argonne's Maria Chan and Purdue's Arun Mannodi-Kanakkithodi, who led the study, chose to work with a form of artificial intelligence (AI) that uses a combination of large data sets and algorithms to imitate the way that humans learn. It learns from training with sample data and past experience to make ever better predictions.

The team used their machine learning method to assess the solar energy properties of halide perovskites. "Unlike silicon or cadmium telluride, the possible variations of halides combined with perovskites are essentially unlimited," said Chan. "There is thus an urgent need to develop a method that can narrow the promising candidates to a manageable number. To that end, machine learning is a perfect tool."

Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley and the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a perovskite-structured ferroelectric compound that might be suitable for the production of lead-free perovskite solar cells.

“The new ferroelectric material – which is grown in the lab from cesium germanium tribromide (CsGeBr₃ or CGB) – opens the door to an easier approach to making solar cell devices,” the team said. “Unlike conventional solar materials, CGB crystals are inherently polarized, where one side of the crystal builds up positive charges and the other side builds up negative charges, no doping required.”

Perovskite-Info is proud to announce an update to our Perovskite for the Display Industry Market Report. This market report, brought to you by the world's leading perovskite and OLED industry experts, is a comprehensive guide to next-generation perovskite-based solutions for the display industry that enable efficient, low cost and high-quality display devices. The report is now updated to September 2022, with all the latest commercial and research activity.

Reading this report, you'll learn all about:

• Perovskite materials and their properties
• Perovskite applications in the display industry
• Perovskite QDs for color conversion
• Prominent perovskite display related research activities

The report also provides a list of perovskite display companies, datasheets and brochures of pQD film solutions, an introduction to perovskite materials and processes, an introduction to emerging display technologies and more.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), in collaboration with scientists from the University of Toledo, the University of Colorado–Boulder, and the University of California–San Diego, have announced a technological breakthrough and constructed a perovskite solar cell with the dual benefits of being both highly efficient and highly stable.

Image

A unique architectural structure enabled the researchers to record a certified stabilized efficiency of 24% under 1-sun illumination, making it the highest reported of its kind. The highly efficient cell also retained 87% of its original efficiency after 2,400 hours of operation at 55 degrees Celsius.

An approach called "carbon capture and utilization" dictates that when the production of harmful greenhouse gases cannot be prevented, the goal is to convert them into something useful. This requires special catalysts, which until now encountered the problem of a layer of carbon that quickly forms on these catalysts—this is called "coking"—and the catalyst loses its effect.

Now, a team of scientists at TU Wien developed a new approach to converting harmful gases: tiny metallic nanoparticles were produced on perovskite crystals through special pre-treatment. The interaction between the crystal surface and the nanoparticles then ensures that the desired chemical reaction takes place without the 'coking' effect.

Scientists from Switzerland's EPFL and the Toyota Motor Corporation have prepared a detailed analysis of the projected costs of designing and operating a 100 MW perovskite solar cell production line in various locations, taking under consideration factors like labor and energy costs as well as all materials and processing. The team found that perovskite PV could be cost-competitive with other technologies even at much smaller scale, but noted that this still depends on the tech proving its long-term stability, and impressive achievements in research being successfully transferred to commercial production.

While perovskite materials have been repeatedly demonstrating their potential for low-cost, high-efficiency solar energy with lower energy fabrication compared to silicon PV technology, there are still many different possibilities regarding the form these commercial products could take, and the materials they could contain - with more than one option that could prove commercially viable.