Lowering Toxicity of Solvent in Organic Solar Cells Manufacturing for 20% Efficiency

Rui Zeng; Fei Han; Wenkai Zhong; Ming Zhang; Senke Tan; Yi Lin; Jiawei Deng; Guanqing Zhou; Lixuan Kan; Lei Zhu; Xingyu Gao; Jinge Zhu; Wutong Zhao; Shengjie Xu; Xiaonan Xue; Bonan Hao; Zichun Zhou; Xuefei Wu; Cheng Wang; Zachary Fink; Zheng Tang; Hao Jing; Thomas P Russell; Yongming Zhang; Feng Liu

doi:10.1002/adma.202501812

Lowering Toxicity of Solvent in Organic Solar Cells Manufacturing for 20% Efficiency

Adv Mater. 2025 Apr 23:e2501812. doi: 10.1002/adma.202501812. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Rui Zeng¹, Fei Han¹, Wenkai Zhong¹, Ming Zhang¹, Senke Tan¹, Yi Lin², Jiawei Deng¹, Guanqing Zhou¹, Lixuan Kan¹, Lei Zhu¹, Xingyu Gao¹, Jinge Zhu¹, Wutong Zhao¹, Shengjie Xu¹, Xiaonan Xue³, Bonan Hao¹, Zichun Zhou¹, Xuefei Wu⁴, Cheng Wang⁵, Zachary Fink^{4

6}, Zheng Tang², Hao Jing³, Thomas P Russell^{4

6}, Yongming Zhang^{1

7}, Feng Liu^{1

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Frontiers Science Center for Transformative Molecules, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Thermal Aging, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China.
² Center for Advanced Low-dimension Materials, State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, China.
³ Shanghai OPV Solar New Energy Technology Co., Ltd, Shanghai, 201210, China.
⁴ Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
⁵ Advanced light source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
⁶ Polymer Science and Engineering Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Fluorinated Functional Membrane Materials and Dongyue Future Hydrogen Energy Materials Company, Zibo City, Shandong, 256401, China.
⁸ Suzhou Laboratory, Suzhou, 215100, China.

PMID: 40269599
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202501812

Abstract

Thin film organic photovoltaics (OPVs) aim to harness solar energy environmentally friendly, highly efficient, and cost-effective means, thereby offering a sustainable solution for energy production and ecological preservation. Efforts are undertook to optimize engineering preparation technology for OPV devices and mini-modules, through the development of low-ecological-impact solvent processing method. A newly developed solvent engineering strategy employing environmentally benign o-xylene (OXY) with synergistic dual additives (DIM and DIB) achieved an optimal power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 20.0% (J_SC of 26.6 mA cm^-2, V_OC of 0.935 V, FF of 80.3%) alongside exceptional stability metrics (82%-1500h). The mini-module processed with optimized TCE:OXY (1:3 v/v) solvent demonstrated scalable performance reaching 17.6% (18.4 cm²), representing the highest performance achieved in the development safe solvent based OPVs. Suitable microscale patterns contributed to a broader range of receiving angles, enabling more flexible installation geometries for building-integrated applications.

Keywords: environmentally friendly; mini‐module; organic photovoltaics; solvent processing method.

Abstract

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