Enhancing the stability of the perovskite solar cells via polymer passivation for building applications

Due to rapid population growth and raising the living standard, global energy consumption is increasing by 8 10% in every 5 years. Present human society is mostly depending on fossil fuels to fulfill its energy need. Thus, energy safeguarding has appeared as an essential and imperative concern due to the rising energy price and continuing burning of fossil fuels. Moreover, the consumption of fossil fuels produced harmful gases, which caused health issues and environmental crisis. Therefore, more attention was given to renewable energy sources. Among the renewable energy sources, solar energy is considered as the prominent energy source. Solar energy can be harvested using photovoltaic (PV) modules. Although silicon-based PVs are enjoys about ~90% market shares, this technology is not cost-effective due to its high materials processing costs. In this regard, thin film-based technologies are emerging due to their low cost and ease of the process. Among them, perovskite (PVT) solar cells (PSCs) stand out due to their low cost and easy fabrication and the device efciency has risen from 3.8% in 2009 to 25.5% in 2020 within a decade. This rapid development is owing to the characteristic properties of the halide PVTs light absorbing materials in devices. PSC technology constantly grows into new and upgraded results. However, achieving stable, toxicity, cost-effective, and reproducible high-efficiency results are still major concerns towards industrialization. PSCs integration into a building in the form of building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) technology is considered as an utmost frontier for superior and wider application for the next-generation PVs. In the BIPV, conventional PVs replace the outdated building casings, for example, window, roof, wall and offset building construction cost. Additionally, this technology reduces CO2 emission (~40% CO2 emission is due to building construction) and improves energy efficiency of the building. Moreover, energy generation via renewable sources and its storage will fulfill the Saudis Vision 2030. In which a target is to produce 58.7 GW of electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030 for reduction of the consumption of fossil fuel and CO2 emissions. This high amount of solar PV electricity will be possible due to the enhancing PV installation of higher performance. Because the cost of the electricity can be reduced by either reducing the manufacturing cost, enhancing the stability, or enhancing the performance of the PV system. Due to harsh weather climate of the Saudi Arabia, it is challenging to deploy the PSC technologies as BIPV. Thus, passivation of the PVT material is very important to provide a stability against humidity and temperature. In this regard, the stability of the PSCs will be improved via polymer passivation. In this way a stable PSC-based device will be achieved. Additionally, polymers will be utilized for the passivation, which will enhance the economic status of the Saudi Arabia. This project will also contribute concerning the goal of the IRC-REPS towards the advancement of its solar cell research capabilities.