Issue 10, 2023

Design and development of a low-cost imidazole-based hole transporting material for perovskite solar cells

Abstract

Low-cost and facile synthesis routes of hole-transporting materials (HTMs) are promising approaches to minimize the total cost of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) on both laboratory and commercial scales. Herein, we report 2-(3-nitrophenyl)-4,5-diphenyl-1H-imidazole (1) as a cost-effective HTM for PSCs. HTM 1 was synthesized without using any catalyst and purification process from largely available commercial precursors. HTM 1 is soluble in many organic solvents and it can be formed as a fine thin layer on top of a perovskite using a spin-coating process. In particular, density functional theory (DFT) studies showed that the energy levels of its frontier molecular orbitals are well aligned with the energy levels of the perovskite layer. Using HTM 1 in PSCs, a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 15.20% was achieved, which was comparable to 2,2′,7,7′-tetrakis-(N, N-di-p-methoxyphenylamine)-9,9′-spirobifluorene (spiro-OMeTAD, HTM 2)'s PCE of 18.21%. In this study, we revealed that HTM 1 based on simple imidazole can be explored as an alternative to spiro-OMeTAD, HTM 2, providing a way for synthesizing simple and efficient HTMs for low-cost PSCs.

Graphical abstract: Design and development of a low-cost imidazole-based hole transporting material for perovskite solar cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
13 mar 2023
Accepted
21 aug 2023
First published
05 sep 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Energy Adv., 2023,2, 1693-1701

Design and development of a low-cost imidazole-based hole transporting material for perovskite solar cells

F. Sadeghi, B. Pashaei, B. N. Bideh, N. Sabahi, H. Shahroosvand and M. K. Nazeeruddin, Energy Adv., 2023, 2, 1693 DOI: 10.1039/D3YA00111C

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