Staff View: A comparative study of low-cost coating processes for green & sustainable organic solar cell active layer manufacturing

A comparative study of low-cost coating processes for green & sustainable organic solar cell active layer manufacturing

Owing to their facile integration into existing commercial products, high volume manufacturing of organic solar cells (OSCs) can be expected in the upcoming years. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the performance and sustainability of various active layer coating methods for OSCs. Herein, we...

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Main Authors:	Varun, Vohra, Nur Tahirah, Razali, Rafeah, Wahi, Lucia, Ganzer, Tersilla, Virgili
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Elsevier 2021
Subjects:	Q Science (General) T Technology (General)
Online Access:	http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/37734/1/organic1.pdf http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/37734/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590147821000541?via%3Dihub https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omx.2021.100127
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spelling	my.unimas.ir.377342022-03-14T04:29:09Z http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/37734/ A comparative study of low-cost coating processes for green & sustainable organic solar cell active layer manufacturing Varun, Vohra Nur Tahirah, Razali Rafeah, Wahi Lucia, Ganzer Tersilla, Virgili Q Science (General) T Technology (General) Owing to their facile integration into existing commercial products, high volume manufacturing of organic solar cells (OSCs) can be expected in the upcoming years. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the performance and sustainability of various active layer coating methods for OSCs. Herein, we compare four active layer coating processes: spin-coating, blade-coating, spray-coating and push-coating for poly(2,7-carbazole-alt-dithienylbenzothiadiazole):[6,6]-Phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PCDTBT:PC71BM) active layers deposition. The optical, morphological and photovoltaic parameters of the active layers are studied. The suitability of each coating method for industrial manufacturing of PCDTBT:PC71BM OSCs is discussed in terms of environmental impact, necessary investments and running costs. Our results confirm that, despite producing high quality and high performance OSCs, spin-coating is unsuitable for high volume manufacturing due to the large amounts of materials and hazardous solvents wasted in the process. Blade-coating provides a good balance between low running costs, low environmental impact and decent performances but the process introduces lateral compositional gradients which could be detrimental for large area OSC processing. Spray-coating requires minimal initial investments but has relatively low performance and low manufacturing sustainability. Push-coating yields OSCs which perform as well as spin-coated ones, with a much lower environmental impact and cost. We should thus look forward to seeing whether this green and sustainable technology can develop into a large area coating process in the future. Elsevier 2021-12-20 Article PeerReviewed text en http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/37734/1/organic1.pdf Varun, Vohra and Nur Tahirah, Razali and Rafeah, Wahi and Lucia, Ganzer and Tersilla, Virgili (2021) A comparative study of low-cost coating processes for green & sustainable organic solar cell active layer manufacturing. Optical Materials: X, 13 (2022). pp. 1-7. ISSN 2590-1478 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590147821000541?via%3Dihub https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omx.2021.100127
institution	Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
building	Centre for Academic Information Services (CAIS)
collection	Institutional Repository
continent	Asia
country	Malaysia
content_provider	Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
content_source	UNIMAS Institutional Repository
url_provider	http://ir.unimas.my/
language	English
topic	Q Science (General) T Technology (General)
spellingShingle	Q Science (General) T Technology (General) Varun, Vohra Nur Tahirah, Razali Rafeah, Wahi Lucia, Ganzer Tersilla, Virgili A comparative study of low-cost coating processes for green & sustainable organic solar cell active layer manufacturing
description	Owing to their facile integration into existing commercial products, high volume manufacturing of organic solar cells (OSCs) can be expected in the upcoming years. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the performance and sustainability of various active layer coating methods for OSCs. Herein, we compare four active layer coating processes: spin-coating, blade-coating, spray-coating and push-coating for poly(2,7-carbazole-alt-dithienylbenzothiadiazole):[6,6]-Phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PCDTBT:PC71BM) active layers deposition. The optical, morphological and photovoltaic parameters of the active layers are studied. The suitability of each coating method for industrial manufacturing of PCDTBT:PC71BM OSCs is discussed in terms of environmental impact, necessary investments and running costs. Our results confirm that, despite producing high quality and high performance OSCs, spin-coating is unsuitable for high volume manufacturing due to the large amounts of materials and hazardous solvents wasted in the process. Blade-coating provides a good balance between low running costs, low environmental impact and decent performances but the process introduces lateral compositional gradients which could be detrimental for large area OSC processing. Spray-coating requires minimal initial investments but has relatively low performance and low manufacturing sustainability. Push-coating yields OSCs which perform as well as spin-coated ones, with a much lower environmental impact and cost. We should thus look forward to seeing whether this green and sustainable technology can develop into a large area coating process in the future.
format	Article
author	Varun, Vohra Nur Tahirah, Razali Rafeah, Wahi Lucia, Ganzer Tersilla, Virgili
author_facet	Varun, Vohra Nur Tahirah, Razali Rafeah, Wahi Lucia, Ganzer Tersilla, Virgili
author_sort	Varun, Vohra
title	A comparative study of low-cost coating processes for green & sustainable organic solar cell active layer manufacturing
title_short	A comparative study of low-cost coating processes for green & sustainable organic solar cell active layer manufacturing
title_full	A comparative study of low-cost coating processes for green & sustainable organic solar cell active layer manufacturing
title_fullStr	A comparative study of low-cost coating processes for green & sustainable organic solar cell active layer manufacturing
title_full_unstemmed	A comparative study of low-cost coating processes for green & sustainable organic solar cell active layer manufacturing
title_sort	comparative study of low-cost coating processes for green & sustainable organic solar cell active layer manufacturing
publisher	Elsevier
publishDate	2021
url	http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/37734/1/organic1.pdf http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/37734/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590147821000541?via%3Dihub https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omx.2021.100127
_version_	1728055570655608832
score	13.211869

A comparative study of low-cost coating processes for green & sustainable organic solar cell active layer manufacturing

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