A Green Approach to Organic Thin-Film Electronic Devices: Recycling Electrodes Composed of Indium Tin Oxide (ITO)

Abstract

Organic thin-film optoelectronic devices, unlike inorganic analogues, offer the attractive prospect of large, flexible, and inexpensive arrays made by simple procedures such as roll-to-roll printing. In current organic thin-film devices, layers of tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) are widely used as electrodes. Motivated by the increasing price of indium and the high cost of ITO-coated substrates, we have examined ways to recover and recycle ITO substrates in typical devices by environmentally benign methods. A process using only water yields recovered ITO substrates that can be reused at least 10 times to prepare new devices without loss of efficiency.

High Performance Organic Solar Cells Fabricated Using Recycled Transparent Conductive Substrates

“…12−15 In regular architecture OSCs, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrenesulfonate is employed as the hole collecting layer, which considerably facilitates the recovery of ITO substrates by simply sonicating them in water. 12 Nevertheless, the longer lifetimes measured for inverted OSCs confer them a higher commercialization potential and it is thus essential to verify whether recycling can be performed with ITO/ZnO substrates. Furthermore, previous studies on OSC substrate recycling focused on the now obsolete P3HT:PCBM active layers.…”

“…Previous studies suggest that compared to regular OSC architectures that use easily oxidized top metal cathodes, inverted architectures employing bottom zinc oxide (ZnO) coated indium tin oxide (ITO) cathodes improve both the PCE and durability of OSCs due to adequate active layer nanomorphology and to self-encapsulating top anodes like molybdenum trioxide (MoO 3 )/silver (Ag) ones. ,, Nevertheless, the OSC lifetimes are still well below those of silicon solar cells and are generally estimated to be less than 5 years. , As OSCs are already being commercialized by several companies in Europe and America, recycling of costly materials from degraded OSCs is an urgent matter to avoid environmental issues related to electronic wastes. In fact, previous studies have demonstrated that ITO substrates can be recovered from degraded OSCs or other emerging electronics such as organic light-emitting devices or perovskite solar cells. − In regular architecture OSCs, poly­(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrenesulfonate is employed as the hole collecting layer, which considerably facilitates the recovery of ITO substrates by simply sonicating them in water . Nevertheless, the longer lifetimes measured for inverted OSCs confer them a higher commercialization potential and it is thus essential to verify whether recycling can be performed with ITO/ZnO substrates.…”

Green Approach To Produce a Graphene Thin Film on a Conductive LCD Matrix for the Oxidative Transformation of Ciprofloxacin

“…Indium (In) was been recovered from a LCD panel through various methods, such as acid leaching, an electrochemical method, and vacuum pyrolysis . Dang et al , used recovered ITO glass from a disposed LCD for the fabrication of optoelectronic devices. Gangadharan et al used LCD polaroid glass as an electrode material for the reduction/recovery of Cr 6+ using a microbial fuel cell.…”

New Films on Old Substrates: Toward Green and Sustainable Energy Production via Recycling of Functional Components from Degraded Perovskite Solar Cells

“…Obviously, to reduce the level of environmental pollution caused by the degraded devices and to reduce the device manufacturing cost and payback time, reusing sources and materials by recycling spent PV devices and/or modules is a wise and adoptable path. There have been techniques for recycling the CdTe and Si solar cell modules. − There has also been report of recyclable organic solar cells that are renewable and sustainable . While substantial progress with respect to recyclable PSCs is still lacking, though related works have been reported.…”