Solar syngas streamed from photonic-enhanced perovskite photovoltaics: paving the way for market deployment

In the face of the escalating environmental challenges, the transition to renewable energies has emerged as a critical and pressing necessity for a sustainable future.

Installation of photovoltaic panels is one way to contribute to the decarbonization, but currently there is only one cost-effective technology available for commercial applications - silicon.

Perovskite Solar Cells (PSC) have emerged recently as a very promising alternative, but some issues like poor stability and the use of an evaporated metallic back-contact are still hindering its way through industrialization. A promising holistic solution is to replace the metallic back-contact by a highly conductive carbon material.

The challenge now is to match the efficiency obtained by the metal back-contact, by maximizing the carbon material’s conductivity, enhancing the interfacial contact or increasing the photon absorption.

Regarding the latter issue, light trapping structures are a promising solution since they already proved successful at maximizing the current generation in silicon solar cells.

Furthermore, large-scale deposition methods must be adopted to develop a realistic experimental procedure compatible with large-scale production, and the encapsulation must be optimized to maximize the life time of the solar module. Still, the intermittency nature of solar energy might create a mismatch between energy production and consumption.

An effective solution is to convert the excess energy into syngas (mixture of CO and H2) by co-electrolysis of CO2 and water.

This gas can then be converted into a synthetic fuel and replace the fossil fuels derivatives, contributing for the EU’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon-emission by 2050.

The optimization of the solar-to-syngas system can be complex due to the extend of dependent processes in series, and thus a computing simulation is a strong tool for predicting the operation and maximizing the energy efficiency of the entire process.