Bio‐based materials for solar cells

Kati Miettunen, Mahboubeh Hadadian, Joaquín Valdez García, Alicja Lawrynowicz, Elena Akulenko, Orlando J. Rojas, Michael Hummel and Jaana Vapaavuori

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, 2024, vol. 13, issue 1

Abstract: Plant‐based materials are emerging as an alternative to conventional components in advanced energy applications. Among these, energy harvesting from sunlight is highly attractive and, in fact, represents the fastest growing energy technology. This review addresses the broad field of solar cell science since plant‐based components can be utilized in almost all solar technologies, and in certain photovoltaic technologies, they can fulfill most of the roles in photovoltaic devices. There is strengthened recent interest in developing sustainable materials options as well as new functionalities being developed for bio‐based materials. This contribution describes the different options for plant‐derived materials in photovoltaics and discusses their deployment feasibility. We focus on performance, lifetime, and embedded energy, all of which are critical to achieve—economically and sustainably–competitive photovoltaic devices. We address the tendency in the current literature for greenwashing, given that not all plant‐based solutions are environmentally‐sound at the device level. On the other hand, plant‐based materials can offer functionalities that cannot be reached with currently used materials. This article is categorized under: Sustainable Energy > Solar Energy Emerging Technologies > Materials Sustainable Energy > Bioenergy

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/wene.508

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:wireae:v:13:y:2024:i:1:n:e508

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=2041-8396

Access Statistics for this article

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment is currently edited by Peter Lund and John Byrne

More articles in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().