New advances to organic solar cells are helping drive the tech out of the lab

The case for organic solar cells: New advances in research on organic solar cells (OSC) that use non-fullerene acceptors — an alternative to fullerene-based electron acceptors which better harness long wavelength radiation — are helping drive the tech to market after addressing low-efficiency rate concerns that have hindered commercial development in recent years, Clean Technica writes.

What are OSCs? OSC’s are carbon-based materials — typically sourced from plastics — processed into a liquid solution that can be painted, sprayed, or printed for different applications including fabric-embedded solar devices and see-through solar windows. Although the materials are sourced from petrochemicals, they can be produced using low-temperature processing methods, significantly reducing their carbon footprint compared to conventional silicon solar panels. A problem that had blocked the tech’s commercial roll out was its inability to maintain efficiency for long periods of time when exposed to sunlight.

How do they fare against silicon solar cells? A conventional silicon-based solar array reaches a power conversion efficiency of up to 20-25%. OSCs can reach around 19% under laboratory conditions, but average only between 10 to 12% in real-world contexts, researcher at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University Alexander Gillett told Clean Technica. Organic panels have historically had short operational life cycles — less than a few thousand hours compared to silicon panels’ over 25 years — thus limiting their usage to small-scale electricity generation rather than large-scale building-integrated applications.

Enter vitamin C?A team of researchers from the University of Southern Denmark introduced ascorbic acid — vitamin C — into OSC systems as a photostabilizer, noting incorporation of the acid strongly suppressed the photocatalytic effect that causes photodegradation.

New OSC designs are also helping increase efficiency: A shell-shaped OSC surface instead of a conventional flat exterior for the active layer designed by Turkey’s Abdullah Gül University is enabling panels to absorb energy from multiple angles, yielding a 66% increase in light absorption. The flexibility of the new tech makes it suitable for applications on the move, such as wearable solar cells, Clean Technica notes.