Comparative evaluation of lead emissions and toxicity potential in the life cycle of lead halide perovskite photovoltaics

Pieter Billen, Enrica Leccisi, Subham Dastidar, Siming Li, Liliana Lobaton, Sabrina Spatari, Aaron T. Fafarman, Vasilis M. Fthenakis and Jason B. Baxter

Energy, 2019, vol. 166, issue C, 1089-1096

Abstract: Lead halide perovskites (LHP) are an emerging class of photovoltaic (PV) materials that have drawn intense interest due to their power conversion efficiencies above 23% and their potential for low-cost fabrication. However, the toxicity of lead causes concern about its use in LHP-PV at large scales. Here, we quantified lead intensity and toxicity potential of LHP-PV in potential commercial production. Lead intensity in LHP-PV life cycles can be 4 times lower and potential toxic emissions can be 20 times lower than those in representative U.S. electricity mixes, assuming that PV operational lifetimes reach 20 years. We introduce the metric “toxicity potential payback time”, accounting for toxic emissions in the life cycle of energy cycles, and showed that it is < 2 years for perovskite PVs produced by and displacing the same grid mix. The toxicity potential associated with the energy of manufacturing a PV system dominates that associated with release of embodied lead. Therefore, the use of lead should not preclude commercialization of LHP-PVs. Instead, effort should focus on development of low-energy manufacturing processes and long service lifetimes. Additional detailed investigations are needed to quantify the full life cycle of commercial production of perovskites and to minimize potential emissions.

Keywords: Thin film solar cells; Lead halide perovskite; Photovoltaics; Life cycle assessment; Toxicity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544218321364
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:energy:v:166:y:2019:i:c:p:1089-1096

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2018.10.141

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().