October 2019

The China-based Microquanta says its research team achieved a 14.24% conversion efficiency record for a large-area (200x800cm²) perovskite solar module. The device has reportedly passed testing by the European Solar Test Installation agency. Also, Microquanta announced a 20 MW perovskite module pilot line.

The business has focused on perovskite cell and module R&D from day one. Last year, Microquanta achieved a lab conversion efficiency record of 17.9% (17.3% stable rate) with its perovskite solar module, and the company then turned to large-area devices.

A multi-institutional team of scientists has designed a new catalytic method in order to battle plastic pollution on a global scale. The team's new catalytic method could prove useful for selectively converting discarded plastics into higher quality products.

"We asked ourselves the question, ​'Plastic, plastic everywhere: What can we do about it in terms of chemical recycling?'' said Max Delferro, group leader of the Catalysis Science Program in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering division at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Argonne National Laboratory. ​'So, we assembled a talented team with DOE's Ames Laboratory and researchers from top universities to provide a solution.' The partners from academia included Northwestern University, Cornell University, University of South Carolina and University of California, Santa Barbara".

A Cornell-led team of scientists has discovered a crystalline material with ultralow thermal conductivity, which could lead to the design of novel energy conversion materials and devices.

After studying a popular hybrid perovskite and identifying the mechanisms for its low thermal conductivity, Zhiting Tian, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell, turned her attention to a hybrid perovskite analogue, methylammonium bismuth iodide (CH₃NH₃)₃Bi₂I₉, which she hypothesized would have an even lower thermal conductivity because of the unique disconnected structure of its inorganic molecules.

After ordering a 100 MW HJT production line from Meyer Burger in August 2019, Oxford PV has placed another partial order to expand the HJT line to an integrated 125 MW production line for high-efficiency perovskite HJT tandem cells.

The Swiss solar PV equipment manufacturer Meyer Burger Technology has received this partial order, worth CHF 18 million ($18.2 million).

An international team of researchers, including ones from Penn State, Columbia University, University of Toledo, Northeastern University in the U.S and Carl von Ossietzky University in Germany, designed next-gen solar cells that mimic photosynthesis with a biological material, by adding the protein bacteriorhodopsin (bR) to perovskite solar cells.

Power conversion efficiency (PCE) distribution of bR-incorporated PSC based on statistics of 15 devices, with average efficiency of 16.34 %. Image from ACS article

'These findings open the door for the development of a cheaper, more environmentally friendly bioperovskite solar cell technology,' said Shashank Priya, associate vice president for research and professor of materials science at Penn State. 'In the future, we may essentially replace some expensive chemicals inside solar cells with relatively cheaper natural materials.'

Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) recently stated that it has developed a flat-type perovskite solar cell with "the world's best photoelectric conversion efficiency".

KEPRI, an R&D subsidiary of KEPCO, reportedly succeeded in producing perovskite solar cell with 20.4% photoelectric conversion efficiency, surpassing the 20.1% efficiency of flat solar cells announced so far.

A team of researchers from Stanford University and University of Colorado Boulder, led by Professor Michael McGehee, demonstrated how to dramatically improve the stability of tin-containing perovskite materials used in stacked solar cells, allowing for up to 30% power conversion efficiency.

These stacked perovskite solar cells could be an inexpensive alternative to silicon solar panels that operate at only 20% efficiency. McGehee and his team have been developing perovskite stacking methods for years in an attempt to increase power conversion efficiency.

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) have conducted an in-depth study on how carbon nanotubes with oxygen-containing groups can be used to enhance the performance of perovskite solar cells. The discovery of perovskites' self-recrystallization ability could lead to the improvement of perovskite solar cells.

A major obstacle that stands before perovskite solar cells is reproducibility. This means that it is hard to consistently create perovskite crystal layers free of defects and holes, which means that deviations from design values are likely to occur and reduce their efficiency. However, researchers have found that the efficiency of these cells can be boosted by combining perovskite with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The mechanism by which CNTs and perovskite bond together and how this affects the performance of CNT perovskite solar cells has not been studied in depth. In addition, the ability of pure CNTs to bond to perovskite is not very good, and this could compromise the structural and conducting properties at the interface of both materials.

A research team led by Prof. GAO Peng from Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed high-performance perovskite solar cells with enhanced environmental stability.

The team reported a 2-(4-fluorophenyl)ethylamine (FPEA: 4-FC₆H₄C₂H₄NH₃) bulky cation to grow a 2D perovskite overlayer on the top of the Cs/FA/MA triple-cation 3D perovskite to combine the high stability of 2D perovskite with high efficiency of 3D perovskite simultaneously.

An all-inorganic perovskite micro/nano-structure has been demonstrated by a collaborative team of researchers from Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics of CAS and Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, that is believed to be a promising candidate for achieving high-performance nano-lasers.

Semiconductor nano-lasers with high spectral purity and stability, namely single-mode nano-lasers, are very desirable in color laser display, on-chip optical communication and computing. To date, most of reported nano-lasers exhibit multi-mode structure resulting from in-homogeneous gain saturation, while the realization of high-quality single-mode laser is very challenging and is largely limited by the cavity structure and the properties of the gain medium.