While researchers strive to develop the most efficient solar cells possible, the latest record for solar efficiency has been broken using the material perovskite, to achieve an efficiency rate of 17.9pc.
The new record set by a team of scientists from South Korea have been using the material, which is considered the most likely to produce the most efficient solar cells. Perovskite is also inexpensive, and has the same structure as calcium titanium oxide.
According to the team’s research paper, the findings mark a significant improvement from previous methods of creating the most solar-absorbent material by blending the perfect amount of methylammounium lead bromide with formamidinium lead iodide at a ratio of 85:15.
Aside from the increase in efficiency, the research team believes one-day production costs can be lowered even further due to the belief perovskite can be ‘printed’ in a similar fashion to how a 3D printer could create a physical object.
However, there remains serious issues with perovskite because of its soluble nature, which obviously raises issues with running them in harsh environmental conditions along with the fact the material is yet to be produced in sizes larger than 0.1cm2.
According to Phys.org, perovskite still remains solar energy’s greatest hope. In the space of five years, the material’s solar absorption efficiency has increased from 3.8pc in 2009, to today’s record of 17.9pc.
