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Research from Swansea University has found that perovskite solar cells (PSCs) can be manufactured outside of expensive cleanrooms, an advance that could lead to low-cost, global green energy.
PSCs are a new type of technology that uses a unique crystal structure to harvest light. They are thinner, lighter, and potentially much cheaper to produce than the traditional silicon panels seen on roofs. These silicon cells are highly fragile during manufacturing, where even a single microscopic dust particle can render a cell unusable, forcing reliance on expensive, energy-intensive cleanrooms and creating a significant barrier to production in developing nations.
Now, researchers at Swansea University’s Faculty of Science & Engineering have found that perovskite technology has a unique tolerance to common dust and debris. Their work is detailed in Communications Materials. 
Lead author of the study, Kat Lacey, said: “To test the limits of the technology, we designed a custom ‘dust box’ to simulate various environments, from standard laboratories to dusty corridors. We used industry-standard test dust to see how these foreign particles impacted the devices during production.”
The team tested standard laboratory solar cells and a scalable ‘roll-to-roll’ version designed for mass production. They systematically introduced dust at different stages of the process, simulating a device sitting in an unprotected room for several days.
The results showed that the presence of microscopic dust had little impact on performance. Solar cells fabricated under non-sterile conditions operated almost identically to those produced in cleanroom environments, suggesting the manufacturing process is more tolerant to contamination than previously thought.
Researchers found that perovskite crystals were able to grow around and over dust particles without significantly affecting the device’s ability to generate current. Moreover, the contamination did not accelerate degradation, even under conditions of high heat and humidity.
“Our findings are a major win for the future of affordable green energy,” said Lacey. “For a long time, we believed high-quality perovskite solar cells had to be made in expensive, ultra-sterile environments. However, our research shows that these cells are surprisingly resilient – they can still perform remarkably well even when exposed to common dust.
“By providing quantified evidence that we can manufacture effective solar cells outside of a controlled lab, it opens the door to much cheaper production. This is a gamechanger for bringing low-cost renewable energy to parts of the world where expensive facilities simply aren’t an option. While there is still a need to test how this holds up on a larger, industrial scale, these results are a massive first step. We’ve shown that the path to a sustainable future might be a lot less complicated, and a lot less expensive, than we previously thought.”
 
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