Researchers at UNIST, POSTECH and the University of Pennsylvania have created a new perovskite-based nanocatalyst that can be used to recycle major greenhouse gases, such as methane (CH₄) and carbon dioxide (CO₂), into valuable hydrogen (H₂) gas.

The new catalyst is hoped to promote various waste-to-energy conversion technologies, as it has over twice the conversion efficiency from CH₄ to H₂ than the traditional electrode catalysts.

A research group led by Prof. LIU Shengzhong from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has reported the fabrication of high efficiency large-area perovskite solar module using slot-die coating with high-pressure nitrogen-extraction (HPNE) and effective passivation strategy.

Slot-die coating is a promising deposition technique due to its advantages in low cost, high throughput, continuous roll-to-roll fabrication. However, it remains a challenge to control thin film uniformity over a large area at thickness as thin as 500 nm while maintaining crystallization quality.

A joint research team from the University of Oxford and Diamond Light Source has developed a new technique that allows reliable atomic-resolution images to be taken, for the first time, of hybrid photoactive perovskite thin films.

Image from Science

The team used the ePSIC (the Electron Physical Science Imaging Centre) E02 microscope and the ARM200 microscope in at the Department of Materials, University of Oxford, to develop the new technique. This reportedly gave the researchers unprecedented insights into the atomic makeup of hybrid photoactive perovskite thin films and provided them with information that is invisible using other techniques.

The United States has urged India to explore manufacturing a cheaper alternative to silicon solar cells, when U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette addressed a virtual press conference at the conclusion of the India energy forum at the IHS CERA Week.

Brouillette said India was "perfectly positioned as a potential manufacturer" of perovskite cells, on which the U.S. was conducting research at its national laboratory in Colorado. He mentioned the high dependence on Chinese technology, saying "We have seen recently with this pandemic, supply chain issues have arisen with countries like China and in certain cases we have become overly dependent upon one country,"

Researchers led by Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands have developed a process that allowed them to fabricate three perovskite layers, and combined these layers into a device that reached 16.8% conversion efficiency.

While tandem cells are the focus of intensive research, combining several active layers into one cell is less explored. Efficiencies close to the 40% mark have been achieved with III-V materials, but for all perovskite devices, the efficiency record previously stood at 6.7%.

Researchers from Singapore's Nanyang Technological University have developed a mini solar module based on thermally evaporated perovskites with an efficiency of 18.4% and a geometric fill factor (GFF) of around 91%. The team believes that the panel could be a real step forward in the industrialization of perovskite mini-modules.

The panel has an active area of 6.4 cm² and is based on co-evaporated methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI₃). The thickness of the MAPbI₃ films was 750 nm, and the films were used to create solar cells with an ‘n-i-p' layout on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) glass substrates.

University of Minnesota researchers, led by Professor Russell Holmes and former CEMS Professor Eray Aydil (NYU), have succeeded in demonstrating stable heterojunctions between metal-halide perovskites and offered the first in-depth examination of interfacial mixing in these structures.

Image from ACS Energy Letters

The team explained that perovskite devices currently rely on architectures that combine the perovskite active layer with adjacent organic or oxide layers. Alternative structures based on perovskite-perovskite heterojunctions have not been widely explored due mainly to ion diffusion and mixing across the interface. In this new work, the researchers demonstrated that this challenge is not a general limitation and that perovskite-perovskite interfaces can be stable.