Researchers in Germany have sent perovskite and organic solar cells on a rocket into space. The solar cells withstood the extreme conditions in space, producing power from direct sunlight and reflective light from the Earth's surface. The work sets the foundation for future near-Earth applications as well as potential deep space missions.

One of the goals for space missions is to minimize the weight of equipment that the rocket carries. While current inorganic silicon solar panels used in space missions and satellites have high efficiencies, they are also very heavy and rigid. The emerging technology of hybrid perovskite and organic solar cells that are incredibly light and flexible becomes an ideal candidate for future applications.

An animal-tracking system by Saule Technologies will support the monitoring of European bison in Ukraine. Local partner World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Ukraine, WWF Poland and Saule Technologies will cooperate on the 'Perovskite Solar Module Enabled IOT Asset Tracking for Wildlife Conservation' initiative under the Challenge Fund: Polish Solutions for SDGs Fund, with the financial support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.

Bohdan Vykhor, PhD, Wildlife Programme manager at the WWF Ukraine, explains that bison population recovery is an ongoing process. 'The species was reintroduced to various areas in Europe with significant efforts from different wildlife conservation programs (WWF, LHI, COA, IUCN, LIFE EU) and great work should be done in the future. We need to connect the free moving bison population divided across Europe and support natural gene flow. Using tracking systems on captive animals is an important element for understanding their behavior in the natural environment, ecological corridors and crucial habitats for different stages of their life cycle - so vital data is key to the success of species conservations.'

Researchers at the College of Materials Science and Engineering at Nanjing University of Science and Technology in China have developed a technique that greatly enhances perovskite QLEDs' performance and stability compared to single interface processing.

The structure of QLED based on QD films passivated without (b) and with passivation (c). Image from Nature Communications

The team proposed a bilateral passivation strategy through passivating the top and bottom interface of the QD film with organic molecules.

Scientists at the University of North Carolina (UNC) have taken on a known perovskite issue - the annealing (heating and slow cooling) process. Many fabrication processes take too long, presenting a significant bottleneck in mass production. The UNC scientists estimate that for long annealing times to keep up with the speed at which perovskites films are produced, manufacturers would need a 500-meter-long oven.

The UNC scientists say that cutting this annealing process down to three minutes at 100^o C could lead to better performance. The group puts this down to a previously unknown de-doping process within the perovskite, which ultimately leads to lower recombination losses and better efficiency.

Researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany and Jilin University in China worked together to investigate a highly promising anode material for future high-performance batteries - lithium lanthanum titanate with a perovskite crystal structure (LLTO). As the team reported, LLTO can improve the energy density, power density, charging rate, safety, and cycle life of batteries without requiring a decrease of the particle size from micro to nano scale.

The demand for electric vehicles is increasing, accompanied by a growing need for smart grids that ensure a sustainable energy supply. These and other mobile and stationary technologies require suitable batteries. For now, lithium-ion batteries (LIB) tend to be the best ones to meet the requirement of storing as much energy as possible in the smallest possible space with the lowest possible weight.

Reports out of China suggest that a perovskite photovoltaic cell production line has gone into production in Quzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province.

The 40-hectare factory was reportedly funded by Microquanta Semiconductor and expected to produce more than 200,000 square meters of photovoltaic glass before the end of 2020.

Researchers at Cornell University and University of Cambridge have analyzed the overall environmental impact of two types of solar panels, comparing these against panels made with crystalline silicon wafers ' the current industry standard.

The team found that a solar panel made from two layers of perovskite requires a smaller total energy input and results in fewer carbon emissions. The panel, a perovskite-perovskite tandem, contains two layers of the material on top of each other, each optimized to absorb a section of the electromagnetic spectrum.