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. 2023 Jun 16;8(7):3038-3047.
doi: 10.1021/acsenergylett.3c00891. eCollection 2023 Jul 14.

Biorenewable Solvents for High-Performance Organic Solar Cells

Julianna Panidi  1 , Eva Mazzolini  1   2 , Flurin Eisner  3 , Yuang Fu  4 , Francesco Furlan  1 , Zhuoran Qiao  1 , Martina Rimmele  1 , Zhe Li  2 , Xinhui Lu  4 , Jenny Nelson  3 , James R Durrant  1   5 , Martin Heeney  1   6 , Nicola Gasparini  1
Affiliations

Biorenewable Solvents for High-Performance Organic Solar Cells

Julianna Panidi et al. ACS Energy Lett. .

Abstract

With the advent of nonfullerene acceptors (NFAs), organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices are now achieving high enough power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) for commercialization. However, these high performances rely on active layers processed from petroleum-based and toxic solvents, which are undesirable for mass manufacturing. Here, we demonstrate the use of biorenewable 2-methyltetrahydrofuran (2MeTHF) and cyclopentyl methyl ether (CPME) solvents to process donor: NFA-based OPVs with no additional additives in the active layer. Furthermore, to reduce the overall carbon footprint of the manufacturing cycle of the OPVs, we use polymeric donors that require a few synthetic steps for their synthesis, namely, PTQ10 and FO6-T, which are blended with the Y-series NFA Y12. High performance was achieved using 2MeTHF as the processing solvent, reaching PCEs of 14.5% and 11.4% for PTQ10:Y12 and FO6-T:Y12 blends, respectively. This work demonstrates the potential of using biorenewable solvents without additives for the processing of OPV active layers, opening the door to large-scale and green manufacturing of organic solar cells.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) Chemical structures of FO6-T and PTQ10 donors and Y12 acceptor. (b) Energy level diagram of the materials used. The HOMO level was measured by air photoemission spectroscopy, and the LUMO level was estimated from the optical band gap. UV–vis and PL spectra of (c) PTQ10:Y12 and (d) FO6-T:Y12 blends processed from 2MeTHF.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Representative J–V and EQE characteristics for (a) PTQ10:Y12- and (b) FO6-T:Y12-based OPVs when the active layer was processed from 2MeTHF, CPME, and 1,2-xylene.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Light-dependent measurements in the range of 5–100 mW/cm2 of OPVs from FO6-T:Y12 and PTQ10:Y12 blends processed from 2MeTHF: (a) Jsc and (b) FF change upon light variation.
Figure 4
Figure 4
FO6-T:Y12 and PTQ10:Y12 OPVs processed from 2MeTHF via doctor blade: (a) J–V and (b) EQE representative characteristics.
Figure 5
Figure 5
GIWAXS analysis for (a) PTQ10:Y12 and (b) FO6-T:Y12 thin films processed from 2MeTHF and CPME with (c) the respective 2D profiles, with dashed lines representing the line cuts extracted along the in-plane direction and with solid lines extracted along the out-of-plane direction.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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