Naturally occurring antioxidants for photooxidatively stable flexible organic solar cells

Rovshen Atajanov^a, Michela Prete^a, Mikkel Bregnhøj^b, Liana Inasaridze^c, Elisa Ogliani^d, Dmytro Volyniuk^e, Subham Dastidar^f, Filipp Obrezkov^g, Juozas Vidas Grazulevicius^e, Jonas Sandby Lissau^a, Sebastian Engmann^h, Horst-Günter Rubahn^a, Anne Ladegaard Skov^d, Michael A. Brookⁱ, Pavel Troshin^g, Adam Printz^f, Peter R. Ogilby^b, Morten Madsen^a, Vida Engmann^a

^aNanoSYD, Mads Clausen Institute, University of Southern Denmark, Alsion 2, DK-6400 Sønderborg, Denmark

^bDepartment of Chemistry, Aarhus University, Langelandsgade 140, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark

^cInstitute of Problems of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician Semenov avenue 1, 142432 Chernogolovka, Moscow Region, Russian Federation

^dDepartment of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Søltofts Plads, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

^eDepartment of Polymer Chemistry and Technology, Kaunas University of Technology, Barsausko 39, Kaunas, Lithuania

^fDepartment of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, The University of Arizona, 1133 E. James E. Rogers, Tucson, Arizona, USA

^gSkolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Nobel Street 3, Moscow 143026, Russian Federation

^hNanoscale Device Characterization Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, United States

ⁱDepartment of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. W., Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada

Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of nanoGe Spring Meeting 2022 (NSM22)

#StEffOPV22. Novel concepts for highly stable and efficient organic solar cells

Online, Spain, 2022 March 7th - 11th

Organizers: Vida Engmann, Morten Madsen and Jeff Kettle

Contributed talk, Rovshen Atajanov, presentation 125
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.nsm.2022.125
Publication date: 7th February 2022

Organic solar cells (OPV) impress with their low energy consumption during production and their low raw material requirements [1]. Since the layer thicknesses are only around 100 nm, around 1 g of an organic semiconductor is sufficient to produce a solar cell area of 10 m². In the future, the energy payback times of organic solar cells will ideally be in the range of just a few days [2]. Over 18% power conversion efficiencies have now been achieved on a laboratory scale [3], however, OPV suffers from limited photostability and hence relatively short lifetimes, which remains a great challenge on the way to the widespread use of this technology.

The lifetime of OPV devices is negatively influenced by light, oxygen and humidity initiated degradation, and also by the morphological rearrangements accelerated by elevated temperatures. The additive assisted photooxidative stabilization of OPV by implementation of a third component into the active layer is one of the most promising strategies to overcome degradation. Recently, our group has reported stabilization of OPV devices by antioxidants which can simultaneously enhance the mechanical properties of OPV. Introduction of naturally abundant carotenoid compounds as photooxidative stabilizers has resulted in drastic improvement of accumulated power generation of the devices, attributed to their singlet oxygen as well as singlet oxygen precursor (e,g, fullerene triplet states) quenching capabilities [4,5]. Our newest results demonstrate the successful application of this approach to NFA-based systems, and we elucidate the dominating stabilizing mechanism via advanced microscopic and spectroscopic measurements.

References:

[1] Colsmann, Alexander, Holger Röhm, and Christian Sprau. "Shining Light on Organic Solar Cells." Solar RRL 4, no. 6 (2020): 2000015.

[2] Espinosa, Nieves, Markus Hösel, Dechan Angmo, and Frederik C. Krebs. "Solar cells with one-day energy payback for the factories of the future." Energy & Environmental Science 5, no. 1 (2012): 5117-5132.

[3] Li, Chao, Jiadong Zhou, Jiali Song, Jinqiu Xu, Huotian Zhang, Xuning Zhang, Jing Guo et al. "Non-fullerene acceptors with branched side chains and improved molecular packing to exceed 18% efficiency in organic solar cells." Nature Energy 6, no. 6 (2021): 605-613.

[4] Prete, M., Ogliani, E., Bregnhøj, M., Lissau, J.S., Dastidar, S., Rubahn, H.G., Engmann, S., Skov, A.L., Brook, M.A., Ogilby, P.R. and Printz, A., Madsen, M., 2021. Synergistic effect of carotenoid and silicone-based additives for photooxidatively stable organic solar cells with enhanced elasticity. Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 9(35), pp.11838-11850.

[5] Turkovic, V., Prete, M., Bregnhøj, M., Inasaridze, L., Volyniuk, D., Obrezkov, F.A., Grazulevicius, J.V., Engmann, S., Rubahn, H.G., Troshin, P.A. and Ogilby, P.R., Madsen, M., 2019. Biomimetic approach to inhibition of photooxidation in organic solar cells using beta-carotene as an additive. ACS applied materials & interfaces, 11(44), pp.41570-41579.

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