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Life Cycle Assessment of Titania Perovskite Solar Cell Technology for Sustainable Design and Manufacturing
Author(s) -
Zhang Jingyi,
Gao Xianfeng,
Deng Yelin,
Li Bingbing,
Yuan Chris
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
chemsuschem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.412
H-Index - 157
eISSN - 1864-564X
pISSN - 1864-5631
DOI - 10.1002/cssc.201500848
Subject(s) - perovskite (structure) , life cycle assessment , perovskite solar cell , materials science , nanotechnology , cadmium telluride photovoltaics , solar cell , photovoltaic system , photovoltaics , embodied energy , environmental science , process engineering , chemical engineering , production (economics) , engineering , electrical engineering , optoelectronics , physics , economics , macroeconomics , thermodynamics
Perovskite solar cells have attracted enormous attention in recent years due to their low cost and superior technical performance. However, the use of toxic metals, such as lead, in the perovskite dye and toxic chemicals in perovskite solar cell manufacturing causes grave concerns for its environmental performance. To understand and facilitate the sustainable development of perovskite solar cell technology from its design to manufacturing, a comprehensive environmental impact assessment has been conducted on titanium dioxide nanotube based perovskite solar cells by using an attributional life cycle assessment approach, from cradle to gate, with manufacturing data from our laboratory‐scale experiments and upstream data collected from professional databases and the literature. The results indicate that the perovskite dye is the primary source of environmental impact, associated with 64.77 % total embodied energy and 31.38 % embodied materials consumption, contributing to more than 50 % of the life cycle impact in almost all impact categories, although lead used in the perovskite dye only contributes to about 1.14 % of the human toxicity potential. A comparison of perovskite solar cells with commercial silicon and cadmium–tellurium solar cells reveals that perovskite solar cells could be a promising alternative technology for future large‐scale industrial applications.