Perovskite solar production

Researchers from South-Africa's University of the Western Cape, University of Missouri and Argonne National Laboratory have developed a new way of enhancing the stability and performance of perovskites. 

Missouri University professor Suchismita (Suchi) Guha, the lead author of the study, and her collaborators improved the methods for making lead halide perovskites. Previous techniques for making these thin-film perovskites required liquid processing using solvents, which rendered the films susceptible to degradation when exposed to air. Additionally, with  prior manufacturing processes, one of its molecules undergoes a change to its structure, causing performance limitations in real-world operating conditions. 
With the new technique, the researchers were able to prevent the change, holding the affected molecule in a stable structure throughout a large temperature range. Additionally, the new technique rendered the perovskite air stable, making it appropriate for a potential solar cell. 

China's GCL Photoelectric Materials, a subsidiary of GCL TECH, announced the completion of RMB 500 million (around USD$72,000,000) B+ round of financing, which was jointly led by Temasek, Sequoia China, and IDG Capital, followed by Longwater Investment and other institutions.

It was reported that this round of financing will be used to improve the process and equipment development of the 100MW perovskite module production line of GCL Photoelectric Materials.

This is a sponsored post by MBRAUN

The potential of perovskites

Over the past decade, perovskites solar cells have attracted tremendous interest from the academic community, becoming a leading photovoltaic trend. Advances in the fundamental understanding of perovskites’ chemical and physical processes made them an attractive class of material for many researchers. In parallel, engineering developments on the architecture and fabrication methods of perovskite-based solar cells are becoming increasingly interesting for the PV industry.

Processing of perovskites

In general, three main types of perovskites processes can be distinguished – the fully vacuum-processed, the fully ambient processed and the hybrid type. For each process, MBRAUN can offer dedicated equipment solutions which will be showed in outline in the following paragraphs.

On one hand vacuum-based methods convince due to high-quality thin films, leading to the best device performance but are but are also characterized by comparatively high investment and operating costs. On the other hand, solution-processing techniques, like spin coating or slot-die coating also produce good-quality layers but excel at significantly lower investment and operation costs.

Comparison of wet and vacuum coating

South Korea-based Qcells and a European research group (led by Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB)) have jointly established a pilot manufacturing line for silicon-perovskite tandem cells in Thalheim, Germany. The project aims to speed up the technology’s mass manufacturing and market penetration. The project began on 1 November.

The so-called "Pepperoni project" will establish a pilot manufacturing line in Thalheim, Qcell’s headquarters in Germany. The name stems from the broader project titled ‘Pilot line for European Production of PEROvskite-Silicon taNdem modules on Industrial scale' or PEPPERONI.

Toray Engineering says that it will ship a slot-die coater to a new perovskite PV production line. The shipment is scheduled by the end of 2022, or in early (Q1)2023. The new coater can handle subsrates up to 1 meter In size, which will enable the world's largest size perovskite PV production line. Products to be manufactured on this line will include BIPV and roof mounted panels, with an annual production capacity of 100 MW.

Toray Engineering has been supplying slot-die coaters and many other process and inspection tools worldwide for the display, semiconductor, and LiB industries. Having two solutions available in slot-die coating, which are Roll to Roll (R2R) and sheet-to-sheet, Toray Engineering is the a leader in slot die equipment supply with a sales record of over 1,000 units.

The Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) announces that it will upgrade its "Spatial Atomic Layer Deposition" (SALD) equipment. SoLayTec and SERIS have been working closely together for over a decade in the field of silicon solar cells. Recently, SERIS stated that SoLayTec will upgrade its existing ALD system using the latest technology of SALD BV, a Dutch technology start-up, for development of scalable perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells.

"Upgrading to the new SALD equipment brings us significant advantages," explains Dr. Shubham Duttagupta, Deputy Director of the Next-Generation Industrial Solar Cells & Modules Cluster at SERIS. The Dutch company SALD BV has developed a patented technology for applying precise coatings on an industrial scale that can be as thin as a single atom. An atomically thin coating, as can be achieved with the SALD technology, can make the cells significantly more robust. SERIS wants to take the leap “from lab to fab” with the new SALD machine. 

Researchers from the City University of Hong Kong and the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, have shown that a self-assembled monolayer can facilitate the formation of a large-area perovskite film using a blade-coating process, thus promote the upscaling of perovskite photovoltaic technology.

Researchers build perovskite solar cells with layers of material deposited on an underlying substrate. In adapting the high-speed blade-coating method for perovskite thin-film deposition, the researchers realized that the surface properties of the substrate are critical for large-area coating and perovskite growth. The current process leaves voids at the buried interface of the perovskite film that is detrimental to the device performance. “To solve this problem, we have screened various hole-transporting materials and found that self-assembled monolayers are a class of promising materials for the upscaling of perovskite devices,” said Alex Jen, a professor at City University of Hong Kong.

Last month, a group of Dartmouth College scientists developed what it refers to as 'the quickest reliable printing method for the manufacturing of perovskite solar cells'. The Dartmouth Engineering Lab's new method accelerates total processing time of solar charge transport layers (CTLs) by 60 times while maintaining reliability.

"Our method prints the layers of the solar cell with the speed and efficiency of a commercial newspaper printing press. This high manufacturing speed is important because it directly translates to lower cost per kWh, which will ultimately make solar energy more affordable for a larger population", said Dartmouth Engineering Professor William Scheideler

Perovskite solar panels have been under intensive R&D, and it seems as if commercial production is right around the corner. Some pilot-scale production lines are already functional, and companies are now ramping up production of perovskite panels, using various technologies.

UK-based Oxford PV, for example, recently announced that it has completed the build-out of its 100 MW manufacturing site in Germany, and it is on track to start full production in 2022. China's Microquanta Semiconductor perovskite panel factory is reportedly also nearing production (which should have started late 2020, but updates have not been available since), and another China-based company, GCL, has raised around $15 million USD to expand its pilot-scale production factory to mass production (100 MW).

Oxford PV has announced that it has completed the build-out of its manufacturing site in Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany.

The site houses the world's first volume manufacturing line for Oxford PV's innovative perovskite-on-silicon tandem solar cells with an annual target manufacturing capacity of 100 MW. Oxford PV expects the line to start full production in 2022.