The Perovskite-Info newsletter

Columbus Energy, investor and partner of Saule Technologies, has announced its plan and strategy for Saule to go public.

Saule Technologies wants to go public without IPO through a reverse merger of a shell company Blumerang Investors, noted in Warsaw’s New Connect market. The companies will begin a due diligence process with a goal to finalize it as soon as possible.

Researchers at TU Wien in Vienna have succeeded in producing a special perovskite suited to act as a catalyst for converting CO₂ into other useful substances, such as synthetic fuels. The new perovskite catalyst is reportedly very stable and also relatively low cost, so it could be suitable for industrial use.

"We are interested in the so-called reverse water-gas shift reaction," says Prof. Christoph Rameshan from the Institute of Materials Chemistry at TU Wien. "In this process, carbon dioxide and hydrogen are converted into water and carbon monoxide. You can then process the carbon monoxide further, for example into methanol, other chemical base materials or even into fuel."

NASA has announced that a small satellite, designed and built by Brown University students, will ride on a future rocket launch.

Image credit: Brown University

The new satellite, dubbed PVDX (Perovskite Visuals and Degradation eXperiment), is a cubesat — a class of miniature satellites ideal for doing low-cost science experiments or technology demonstration in space. Members of Brown Space Engineering (BSE), a student group, worked for three years to develop a mission plan and proposal for NASA’s Cubesat Launch Initiative, which uses auxiliary cargo space on rockets to send cubesats to space.

Solliance partners TNO, imec/EnergyVille and the Eindhoven University of Technology, have reported a 18.6% efficient highly near infrared transparent perovskite solar cell. When combined in a four terminal tandem configuration with an efficient Panasonic crystalline silicon (c-Si) cell or with a Miasolé flexible CIGS cell, the configuration delivered new record power conversion efficiencies of 28.7% and 27.0%, respectively.

The researchers explained that four terminal tandems allow to build on experience and practices already available in the industry. In addition, four terminal perovskite/c-Si tandems can be applied broadly and are, for example, very beneficial in combination with bifacial c-Si solar cells which, depending on the actual albedo, can readily achieve a total power generation density as high as 320 W/m².

Researchers at AMOLF have found a way to manipulate the speed of the 'hot carrier cooling' process in perovskites. In this process, high energy photons lose their excess energy in the form of heat before being converted to electricity. In solar cells, about two thirds of the energy of sunlight is lost - and half of this loss stems from the hot carrier cooling process.

Schematic representation of the pressure-dependent setup. Image from JACS article

The AMOLF team found a way to manipulate the speed of this process in perovskites, by applying pressure to the material. This paves the way for making perovskites more versatile, not only for use in solar cells but also in a variety of other applications, from lasers to thermoelectric devices.

A University of North Texas researcher and his team have reported a breakthrough in using additive manufacturing to further research into flexible solar panels.

Anupama Kaul, Professor of Engineering from the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering, has successfully used additive manufacturing to print inks of 2D perovskites.