Most research on perovskite solar cells has focused on improving power-conversion efficiency and stability. However, if one could refurbish perovskite solar cells, their stability might not be a critical issue. From the perspective of cost effectiveness, if failed, perovskite solar cells could be collected and recycled; reuse of their gold electrodes and transparent conducting glasses could reduce the price per watt of perovskite photovoltaic modules. Herein, we present a simple and effective method for removing the perovskite layer and reusing the mesoporous TiO₂-coated transparent conducting glass substrate via selective dissolution. We find that the perovskite layer can be easily decomposed in polar aprotic solvents because of the reaction between polar aprotic solvents and Pb²⁺ cations. After 10 cycles of recycling, a mesoporous TiO₂-coated transparent conducting glass substrate-based perovskite solar cell still shows a constant power-conversion efficiency, thereby demonstrating the possibility of recycling perovskite solar cells.

Nature Communications 7, Article number: 11735 doi:10.1038/ncomms11735
Received 05 December 2015 Accepted 25 April 2016 Published 23 May 2016

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160523/ncomms11735/full/ncomms11735.html

大多数钙钛矿太阳能电池的研究主要集中于能量转化效率和稳定性。然而，如果能够重复利用太阳能电池，或许稳定性不再会是一个问题。从经济角度来看，如果太阳能电池失效，只需将它们回收并重新使用上面的金电极和透明导电玻璃，这样能够减少每瓦特电池模块的价格。韩国和美国的科学家利用选择溶解的方法能够去除钙钛矿层并重新使用介孔 TiO₂涂覆的透明导电玻璃基片。他们发现因为 Pb²⁺阳离子和非质子化溶剂的相互反应，钙钛矿层能够在极化非质子溶剂中很容易地分解。10次循环使用后，介孔TiO₂涂覆的透明导电玻璃基片上的太阳能电池仍然表现出一个恒定的功率转化效率，充分表明了重复使用钙钛矿太阳能电池的可能性。（新材料在线）