Improving Thermal Stability of Perovskite Solar Cells by Thermoplastic Additive Engineering

Zaheen Uddin, Junhui Ran (), Elias Stathatos and Bin Yang ()
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Zaheen Uddin: College of Materials Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Junhui Ran: College of Materials Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Elias Stathatos: Nanotechnology & Advanced Materials Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of the Peloponnese, 26334 Patras, Greece
Bin Yang: College of Materials Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 9, 1-12

Abstract: The commercialization of perovskite solar cells is hindered by the poor thermal stability of organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite materials. Herein, we demonstrate that crystalline thermoplastic polymer additives, such as a mixture of polyethylene oxide (PEO, 100,000 MW) and polyethylene glycol (PEG, 12,000 MW), can improve the thermal stability of CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 (MAPbI 3 ) perovskites and thereby enhance device stability. High-quality less-defect perovskite films were obtained by establishing a strong reaction between hydroxy groups in the PEO + PEG mixture and the uncoordinated Pb 2+ in MAPbI 3 perovskites, leading to a high power conversion efficiency of over 18% despite the presence of insulating thermoplastic polymers in the MAPbI 3 film. More importantly, as compared with pristine MAPbI 3 perovskite solar cells, the PEO + PEG-modified counterparts showed significantly improved stability under thermal treatment at 85 °C in ambient air with a relative humidity of 50–60%, remaining at nearly 71% of their initial efficiency values after 120 h. These demonstrations offer a feasible thermoplastic polymer additive engineering strategy to improve the thermal stability of perovskite solar cells.

Keywords: halide perovskites; thermal stability; thermoplastic additives; solar cells (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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