Interlayer Modification Using Eco-friendly Glucose-Based Natural Polymers in Polymer Solar Cells

Lin, Po‐Chen; Wong, Yu-Tai; Su, Yuan; Chen, Wen‐Chang; Chueh, Chu‐Chen

doi:10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b03219

Cited by 34 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Chitosan is largely used in different applications in the form of solutions, gels, fibers, or stable thin-films. [51,196,201,202] Noteworthy, chitin and derivatives have been already employed successfully in optoelectronic devices in the form of thin film (Section 5). [202,203]…”

Section: Chitin and Chitosanmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In 2018, Chueh's group systematically explored chitosan, methyl-cellulose, and dextrin as modifying interlayers for the ZnO electron-transporting layer in inverted OSCs. [201] They pointed out how the "β-type" glucose-based cellulose was the most efficient modifying interlayer for ZnO electron-transporting layer due to a smoother morphology of the thin layers (Table 1). While a similar energy alignment was expected, the authors also discussed that the glucose-based interlayers showed a capability to prevent the formation of aggregates in the photoactive layer prepared onto them to yield an ideal BHJ morphology.…”

Section: Charge Transporting Layermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Merging Biology and Photovoltaics: How Nature Helps Sun‐Catching

Cavinato

Fresta

Ferrara

et al. 2021

Advanced Energy Materials

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conditions. This makes difficult to further reduce the cost of electricity production. [7,8] Furthermore, although solar energy is a renewable source, it does not mean that any kind of photovoltaics (PV) is sustainable. For instance, silicon is an essential material in electronics and solar industries and, up to date, is irreplaceable. Despite its abundancy in Earth's crust, it is for the vast majority (80%) present as ferrosilicon, whose purification is expensive and highly pollutant. The production of 1 ton of silicon requires 6 tons of raw materials, almost 3 tons of Quartz, 1.5 tons of reducing agents, 1.5 tons of wood and 13 000 kWh of energy. [9,10] Therefore, in 2014 the EU commission included silicon metal in the critical raw material (CRM) list. [11] In this context, the third generation PV has reborn, offering cost-effective and efficient CRM-free devices with a lower reliance on the incident angle of light and integration in smart-end applications, like flexible and wearable devices, [12][13][14] fully transparent solar cells and windows, [15,16] and biocompatible devices. [17][18][19] The leading third generation SCs are organic solar cells (OSCs), [20][21][22] perovskite solar cells (PSCs), [23][24][25][26][27] and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). [28][29][30] Despite their versatile applications and high performances, sustainability still represents a major issue toward becoming an ideal energy technology in the mid-long term future. Among others, fullerene-based materials are toxic, [31] indium tin oxide (ITO) is brittle, chemically unstable, and expensive due to limited indium sources on Earth's crust. [32,33] Cobalt is also listed as CRM, [11] while cadmium, selenium, lead and ruthenium are toxic materials. [34,35] With regard to flexible devices, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the standard substrate; though its environmental footprint is critical and its nonbiodegradable properties lead to harmful effects in living organisms. [36] This has fueled a strong cooperation among the fields of engineering, biology, chemistry, and physics to discover new strategies for cost-effectiveness preparation and implementation of bio-derived materials in highly performing PVs.In general, this cooperation constitutes a part of the emerging and multidisciplinary field of biophotonics, [37] which involves biomedical optics, [38] living light, [39][40][41] biomimetic, biomaterials and bioengineered compounds, as well as fabrication/implementation methods applied to optoelectronics [42] and photonics, [43] among others. For instance, artificial lightning and biology have been recently merged with the implementation of cellulose, chitosan, silk, and fluorescent proteins as Accomplishing sustainability in optoelectronics, in general, and photovoltaics (PV), in particular, represents a crucial milestone in green photonics. Third generation PV technologies, such as organic solar cells (OSCs), perovskite solar cells (PSCs), and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have reached a mature age and are slowly making thei...

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Section: Chitin and Chitosanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Charge Transporting Layermentioning

confidence: 99%

Merging Biology and Photovoltaics: How Nature Helps Sun‐Catching

Cavinato

Fresta

Ferrara

et al. 2021

Advanced Energy Materials

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“…We next used these GNSs as a surface modifier for the inorganic ZnO ETL in an inverted OPV as portrayed in Figure 2a, aiming to passivate the defective surface of ZnO. [53,54] We first examined the surface morphology of these GNS-modified ZnO films using atomic force microscopy (AFM). As shown in Figure 2b, all of the GNS-modified ZnO films possessed a smooth surface similar to the pristine ZnO films but exhibited a smaller root-mean-square (RMS) values (1.28 to 1.60 nm).…”

Section: Surface Modification For Zno Etl Using Gnssmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving Thermal and Photostability of Polymer Solar Cells by Robust Interface Engineering

Huang

Tsai

et al. 2022

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As the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic photovoltaics (OPVs) approaches 19%, increasing research attention is being paid to enhancing the device's long‐term stability. In this study, a robust interface engineering of graphene oxide nanosheets (GNS) is expounded on improving the thermal and photostability of non‐fullerene bulk‐heterojunction (NFA BHJ) OPVs to a practical level. Three distinct GNSs (GNS, N‐doped GNS (N‐GNS), and N,S‐doped GNS (NS‐GNS)) synthesized through a pyrolysis method are applied as the ZnO modifier in inverted OPVs. The results reveal that the GNS modification introduces passivation and dipole effects to enable better energy‐level alignment and to facilitate charge transfer across the ZnO/BHJ interface. Besides, it optimizes the BHJ morphology of the photoactive layer, and the N,S doping of GNS further enhances the interaction with the photoactive components to enable a more idea BHJ morphology. Consequently, the NS‐GNS device delivers enhanced performance from 14.5% (control device) to 16.5%. Moreover, the thermally/chemically stable GNS is shown to stabilize the morphology of the ZnO electron transport layer (ETL) and to endow the BHJ morphology of the photoactive layer grown atop with a more stable thermodynamic property. This largely reduces the microstructure changes and the associated charge recombination in the BHJ layer under constant thermal/light stresses. Finally, the NS‐GNS device is demonstrated to exhibit an impressive T80 lifetime (time at which PCE of the device decays to 80% of the initial PCE) of 2712 h under a constant thermal condition at 65 °C in a glovebox and an outstanding photostability with a T80 lifetime of 2000 h under constant AM1.5G 1‐sun illumination in an N2‐controlled environment.

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“…There is also strong evidence that the use of biopolymer and plant-based materials has been increasing and penetrating into various fields, for example, the technology of reusing cysteine-containing protein materials from keratinous waste to produce tough keratin fibre [10], fabrication of sustainable membrane using bamboo fibre to enhance cross-flow filtration performance [11] and perforated lotus leaf to treat oil spillage [12]. Besides, biopolymer is also widespread in other fields such as utilisation of natural fatty acids for drug releases in the medical field [13], biophenol coatings on nanofiltration membranes to improve its performance on the separation of organic media [14] and glucose-based biopolymer to modify the interlayer of the solar cell, which enables 95% of enhancement in power conversion efficiency [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insight on Extraction and Characterisation of Biopolymers as the Green Coagulants for Microalgae Harvesting

Ang

Kiatkittipong

et al. 2020

Water

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This review presents the extractions, characterisations, applications and economic analyses of natural coagulant in separating pollutants and microalgae from water medium, known as microalgae harvesting. The promising future of microalgae as a next-generation energy source is reviewed and the significant drawbacks of conventional microalgae harvesting using alum are evaluated. The performances of natural coagulant in microalgae harvesting are studied and proven to exceed the alum. In addition, the details of each processing stage in the extraction of natural coagulant (plant, microbial and animal) are comprehensively discussed with justifications. This information could contribute to future exploration of novel natural coagulants by providing description of optimised extraction steps for a number of natural coagulants. Besides, the characterisations of natural coagulants have garnered a great deal of attention, and the strategies to enhance the flocculating activity based on their characteristics are discussed. Several important characterisations have been tabulated in this review such as physical aspects, including surface morphology and surface charges; chemical aspects, including molecular weight, functional group and elemental properties; and thermal stability parameters including thermogravimetry analysis and differential scanning calorimetry. Furthermore, various applications of natural coagulant in the industries other than microalgae harvesting are revealed. The cost analysis of natural coagulant application in mass harvesting of microalgae is allowed to evaluate its feasibility towards commercialisation in the industrial. Last, the potentially new natural coagulants, which are yet to be exploited and applied, are listed as the additional information for future study.

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Interlayer Modification Using Eco-friendly Glucose-Based Natural Polymers in Polymer Solar Cells

Cited by 34 publications

References 42 publications

Merging Biology and Photovoltaics: How Nature Helps Sun‐Catching

Merging Biology and Photovoltaics: How Nature Helps Sun‐Catching

Improving Thermal and Photostability of Polymer Solar Cells by Robust Interface Engineering

Insight on Extraction and Characterisation of Biopolymers as the Green Coagulants for Microalgae Harvesting

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