Australian dye solar cell specialist Dyesol reports that a research team headed by Professor Michael Grätzel has achieved 1000 hours of stability under light soaking and more than 2000 hours under temperatures of 80–85 degrees Celsius. Further, the team has demonstrated outdoor durability of perovskite solar cells in real-world conditions. Grätzel, who directs the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, is also chairman of Dyesol’s Technology Advisory Board.

In the scientific publication in the journal Energy Technology, in an article titled, “Outdoor Performance and Stability under Elevated Temperatures and Long-Term Light Soaking of Triple-Layer Mesoporous Perovskite Photovoltaics,” a team researching at the Center of Nanotechnology, King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, reported no material loss of power conversion efficiency (PCE) after imposing three critical stability tests. These are tests derived from international standards such as IEC 61646 where cells are subjected to a constant elevated temperature, light soaking, or real-world testing.

Outdoor testing, as in these experiments, where very harsh conditions are encountered in the Saudi Arabian desert, is considered to be technologically robust. Stability is critical in establishing the suitability of a technology for warrantable long-life PV products.

The team used a cell architecture that matches one of the systems being developed by Dyesol for commercialization evaluation. This architecture is designed to eliminate the use of expensive back contact conductors and also eliminates the use of a conventional organic hole-transport-material, such as spiro-OMeTAD. In addition to perovskite, the active materials are TiO2 and ZrO2. Dyesol is working with Cristal in further development of these materials.

Dyesol believes the technology applied in these experimental conditions is protected by patents that Dyesol enjoys access to by virtue of its licence conditions with the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). No competitive technology in the field of perovskites has yet to demonstrate such promising stability results.

Dyesol has a commercialisation model focussed on the exploitation of solid-state DSC or Perovskite Solar Cells (PSC). Its principal substrates of choice are glass and steel for building-applied (BAPV) and building-integrated (BIPV) photovoltaic applications.