“One-key-reset” recycling of whole perovskite solar cell

Summary

Sustainably recycling photovoltaic (PV) products at the end of their life cycle is essential for reducing environmental impact and saving costs on raw materials. Halide perovskite PVs currently suffer from a short lifespan, and recycling and remaking could equivalently extend their life cycle. Here, we report an effective and rapid "one-key reset" recycling paradigm to collect all the functional layer components from a used PV device at a high material extraction efficiency. A remade device incorporating all the layers, including recycled indium tin oxide/tin oxide substrate, perovskite, spiro-OMeTAD, and gold, exhibits an average power conversion efficiency of over 20%. This finding that the recycled device exhibits identical performance compared with the original, while providing enormous savings in cost, time, and energy, could lead to a recycling route that will dramatically lower the levelized cost of energy of perovskite PVs and enhance their competitiveness in future energy markets.