Economic Scenarios

Australian university achieves record photovoltaic effect with Kesterite: inexpensive and non-toxic

Researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have broken the world record for the efficiency of kesterite solar cells, considered a promising alternative to traditional silicon-based solar panels. A natural mineral already present in nature

The team achieved “ best-ever efficiency of 13.2% for high-bandgap, hydrogen-enhanced kesterite solar cells .”

Kesterite is a natural mineral composed of copper, zinc, tin and sulfur (CZTS). It has long been recognized for its potential in solar cell applications.

Kesterite ore

It is abundant, non-toxic and cheap to produce if obtained artificially making it an attractive candidate for next generation solar technology.

“Silicon modules have almost reached the limit of their theoretical efficiency, so we are trying to answer the photovoltaic industry's question of how the next generation of cells will be made,” said Scientia professor Xiaojing Hao, who led the research team.

Overcoming the challenges of kesterite production

Previous attempts to harness kesterite's full potential have been hampered by defects formed during the manufacturing process.

“Put simply, to create CZTS you take copper, tin, zinc and sulfur and 'cook' them together at a certain temperature which transforms them into a material that can be used as a semiconductor,” explains the author. “The difficult part is control defects that are introduced during the process. In this work we have shown that the introduction of hydrogen can ensure that defects have less impact, which is known as passivation.

“As hydrogen modulates defects within the CZTS, this helps increase its efficiency in terms of converting sunlight into electricity.”

The use of CZTS could be better implemented in so-called tandem solar cells, which combine two or more solar cells to capture and convert more of the solar spectrum into electricity, improving overall efficiency.

Professor Hao hopes the new discovery will accelerate the chances of CZTS reaching 15% efficiency by next year and expects their commercialization by 2030.

“There is still work to be done to find ways to further reduce the defects we find in CZTS, both during manufacturing and through post-manufacturing treatments,” says the professor.

This technique, known as passivation , effectively neutralizes the harmful effects of defects and allows kesterite solar cells to convert sunlight into electricity with greatly improved efficiency.

The research team with the first new generation cell

The discovery builds on six years of research by the UNSW team, which initially achieved an efficiency of 11.4% for CZTS cells. When the effectiveness of the passivation activity was discovered, a value of 13.2% was achieved. Now the goal is to reach 20%, which would make these cells economically viable.

“The big picture is that we ultimately want to make electricity generation cheaper and greener,” said Prof. Hao.

“CZTS is an ideal material for solar cells because it is environmentally friendly, cost-effective and has long-term stability.”
The findings obtained by the UNSW team have significant implications for the future of solar energy.

Suitable for tandem solar cells

Kesterite solar cells are suitable for use in tandem solar cells, which combine different materials to capture a broader spectrum of sunlight and achieve higher yields.

The team is optimistic that this discovery will pave the way for the commercialization of kesterite solar cells by 2030.

“There is still work to be done to find ways to further reduce the defects we find in CZTS, both during manufacturing and through post-manufacturing treatments,” acknowledged Prof. Hao.

“But we know it's good material. If we look at the requirements from the bottom up, we know that we need something that is widely abundant, that is environmentally friendly, that has good optoelectronic properties and that can last a long time – and CZTS fits the bill.”

Kesterite offers a sustainable solution

The team plans to explore alternative materials for solar cells, including perovskite.
Although perovskite boasts higher yields, it suffers from stability and toxicity problems, being a compound that, in its basic form, contains lead. Kesterite, on the other hand, offers a more sustainable and ecological solution.

“When you go the other way, from top to bottom, maybe with something like perovskite, you can get very high performance and yields in the beginning, but it's much less stable and the panels might only last a year, so it's not sustainable,” concluded the author. Instead, here we proceed from a stable situation, with a low return, to move towards higher returns.


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The article Australian university achieves record photovoltaic effect with Kesterite: inexpensive and non-toxic comes from Economic Scenarios .


This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/universita-australiana-ottiene-effetto-fotovoltaico-record-con-la-kesterite-poco-costosa-e-non-tossica/ on Tue, 04 Feb 2025 19:12:20 +0000.