The Perovskite-Info newsletter (September 27, 2022)

Chinese equipment maker, Boamax Technologies Group, has announced a joint venture with researchers from Xidian University and another investor to develop and sell perovskite solar cells. The venture will also make production equipment and raw materials.

Boamax will have a 37% stake in the JV. A partnership formed by the Xidian  scholars will contribute its patent technologies to hold 45.5% of the equity. The third investor party will have an 18.2% stake. 

Researchers from Korea University and Seoul Women's University have developed an inverted perovskite solar cell by introducing an electron-accepting interlayer at the interface between the perovskite layer and the electron transport layer.

The solar cell has a p-i-n structure (the perovskite cell material is deposited onto the hole transport layer and then coated with the electron transport layer), which is the opposite of the conventional n-i-p device structure. Inverted perovskite solar cells tend to show good stability, but lack in terms of conversion efficiency and cell performance.

Reliance New Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, has signed agreements to invest in the US-based perovskite-based solar technology company Caelux Corporation which is in the research and development stage of its perovskite-based solar technology. 

The Reliance company will invest USD$12 million to acquire a 20 percent stake in the US-based company. 

Researchers from Rice University, Northwestern University, Purdue University, University of Washington, CNRS and Argonne National Laboratory have addressed a long-standing issue in making stable, efficient solar panels out of halide perovskites. It took finding the right solvent design to apply a 2D top layer of desired composition and thickness without destroying the 3D bottom one (or vice versa). Such a cell would turn more sunlight into electricity than either layer on its own, with better stability.

The team, led by Chemical and biomolecular engineer Aditya Mohite and his lab at Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering, recently reported their success at building thin 3D/2D solar cells that deliver a power conversion efficiency of 24.5%.

A research team, led by Dr. Lei Su at Queen Mary University of London in collaboration with University College London, recently designed a new application of perovskites as optical fibers.

Optical fibers are thin wires in which light travels at a superfast speed—100 times faster than electrons in cables. These tiny optical fibers transmit the majority of our internet data. At present, most optical fibers are made of glass. The perovskite optical fiber made by Dr. Su's team consists of just one piece of a perovskite crystal. The optical fibers have a core width as low as 50 μm (the size of a human hair) and are very flexible—they can be bent to a radius of 3.5 mm.

Solliance partners TNO, TU Eindhoven, imec and TU Delft have joined forces to further push the conversion efficiency of tandem solar cells to beyond the limits of today’s commercial PV modules. They have achieved an extraordinary feat: the first time that four-terminal perovskite/silicon tandem devices with certified top cell passed the barrier of 30%.

Bottom silicon solar cell and top perovskite solar cell with transparent contacts. Photo credit: Niels van Loon

Such high efficiency enables more power per square meters and less cost per kWh. The result was presented during the 8th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC-8) in Milan and has been achieved by combining perovskite solar cell tech with conventional silicon solar cell technologies. The perovskite cell that features transparent contacts and is part of the tandem stack has been independently certified.