8.7% Power conversion efficiency polymer solar cell realized with non-chlorinated solvents

Abstract

The use of environmental friendly solvents for the fabrication of solution processed organic photovoltaics is a key issue to scale up the technology. Nowadays however, toxic and harmful chlorinated solvents are largely used in polymer solar cell laboratory research. In this work we successfully reached high solubility and miscibility of the low band gap polymer Poly [[4,8-bis[(2-ethylhexyl)(PBDTTT-E-F, commonly known as PTB7), blended with [6,6]-Phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl-ester ([70] PCBM fullerene derivative) in a non-chlorinated solvent (Dimethylbenzenes also known as Xylenes). We studied the solar cells realized depositing blend solutions based on various Xylenes (ortho, para and an isomeric mixture from technical grade) achieving high power conversion efficiencies up to 8.7%.

Highly efficient polymer solar cells cast from non-halogenated xylene/anisaldehyde solution

“…[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] While most reports in the literature have focused on the eco-friendliness of the main solvents, little attention has been paid to solvent additives which are often used to control the film drying in order to yield a favorable nano-morphology. Therefore, a strong need for alternative solvents has been recognized by the community, recently focussing on novel high-performance polymer:fullerene bulkheterojunction (BHJ) solar cells, deposited from nonchlorinated mono-, bis-or tris-substituted benzene analogues.…”

Synthetic Routes to TEG‐Substituted Diketopyrrolopyrrole‐Based Low Band‐Gap Polymers

“…Moreover, TegDPPBDT shows good solubility in chloroform as well as a good wettability. We fabricated the following solar cell in the inverted architecture: ITO/ZnO/TegDPPBDT:PC 70 BM/MoO 3 /Ag. The polymer blend layer was subjected to thermal annealing at 290 °C under an inert atmosphere for 2 min.…”

Fullerene derivatives as nano-additives in polymer composites

“…68 The possibility of designing solar cells using non-chlorinated and, therefore, less toxic solvents (e.g., xylene) is of high priority in the development of photovoltaic devices for common consumption. 69 There are reports on interesting ways to use fullerene as a dopant in the active layers of photovoltaic devices.…”