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Water based spray pyrolysis of metal-oxide solutions for Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 solar cells using low toxicity amine/thiol complexants

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posted on 2018-12-06, 15:52 authored by Lewis Wright, Jamie Lowe, Martin BlissMartin Bliss, Vincent Tsai, Mustafa Togay, Tom BettsTom Betts, Michael WallsMichael Walls, Andrei MalkovAndrei Malkov, Jake BowersJake Bowers
Cu ZnSnS(e) 2 4 deposited using solution processes has potential for terrawatt-scale deployment. The champion highest efficiency Cu ZnSn(S,Se) 2 4 cell published in literature is spin-coated using the highly dangerous hydrazine which is an impractically scalable solvent and deposition combination. As an alternative solvent amine-thiol mixtures have shown to complex with a wide range of binary chalcogenides with much lower health risks than hydrazine. Herein we present two further toxicity reductions, first by employing a less harmful amine-thiol pairing and second by using water as a diluting solvent. We exclude extraneous elements from the precursor solution such as halogens and with a sub-micron thickness crystalline absorber achieve an efficiency of 6.8 %. With the modified solution deposited by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis, this solution process is scalable, abundant, and relatively non-toxic.

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the EPSRC for funding through the Centre for Doctoral Training in New and Sustainable Photovoltaics [grant number EP/L01551X/1] and The PVTEAM project [grant number EP/L017792/1] to support this work.

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Chemistry

Published in

Thin Solid Films

Citation

WRIGHT, L.D. ... et al., 2018. Water based spray pyrolysis of metal-oxide solutions for Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 solar cells using low toxicity amine/thiol complexants. Thin Solid Films, 669, pp. 588-594.

Publisher

© the Authors. Published by Elsevier

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/

Acceptance date

2018-11-21

Publication date

2018-11-26

Notes

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Elsevier under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

ISSN

0040-6090

Language

  • en

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