Coupling with perovskite solar cell holds potential for cleaner cars, home power sources and more. Researchers have wired 4 perovskite solar cells in series to enhance the voltage and directly photo-charged lithium batteries with 7.8% efficiency – the most efficient reported to date, the researchers believe.
“Others have used polymer solar cells to charge lithium batteries, but not with this efficiency.” Perovskite solar cells have active materials with a crystalline structure identical to the mineral perovskite and are considered a promising new design for capturing solar energy. Compared to silicon-based cells, they convert a broader spectrum of sunlight into electricity..
Dai’s lab made multilayer solar cells, which increases their energy density, performance and stability. Testing showed that, as desired, 3 layers convert into a single perovskite film. By wiring 4 lab-sized cells, ~0.1 cm square each, in series, the researchers further increased the open circuit voltage. The solar-to-electric power conversion efficiency was 12.65%.
To charge button-sized lithium-ion batteries, they used a lithium-ion-phosphate cathode and a lithium-titanium-oxide anode. The photoelectric conversion and storage efficiency was 7.8%. Through 10 photo-charge/galvanostatic (steady current) discharge cycles lasting nearly 18 hours, the technology maintained almost identical discharge/charge curves over all cycles, showing high cycling stability and compatibility of the components.
“We envision, in the not too distant future, this is a system that you could have at home to refuel your car and, eventually, because perovskite solar cells can be made as a flexible film, they would be on the car itself,” said Jiantie Xu. The researchers are developing small-scale prototypes and working to further improve the perovskite cell’s stability and optimize the system. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-08/cwru-
Photo-charging a LIB by PSCs. Credit: Jiantie Xu, Yonghua Chen, Liming Dai. Efficiently photo-charging lithium-ion battery by perovskite solar cell. Nature Communications, 2015; 6: 8103 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9103
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