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Hybrid Solar Cell: Potential Alternative to Conventional Solar Cell

Year : 2021

Mentors : Neha Patni

Students involved : 18BCH045 - Krishna H. Patel, 18BCH054 - Zulfiqar M Rokadia

Project : Link

Abstract: Today, India’s only 21.12% of energy is produced by renewable sources. Out of all renewable sources, solar power and wind power contribute 33.169% and 47.689% respectively. In the coming years, the Indian government is focused on increasing it’s the solar capacity from 24.33GW to 100GW. So, Solar Energy in the imminent future is going to play a major role in India’s Energy Sector. Generally, Silicon-based inorganic solar cells are mainly used. Conventional Silicon Solar Cell is mainly preferred due to its high efficiency and long-term stability. But it has a major disadvantage of its huge production cost which is mainly due to the requirement of highly pure silicon and the use of other expensive materials. Hybrid Solar Cells are a breakthrough in solar cell technology. It has been cheap alternatives to conventional silicon solar cells. They consist of a combination of organic and inorganic materials. Hybrid solar cells combine organic and inorganic materials with the aim of utilising the low-cost cell production of organic photovoltaics (OPV) as well as obtaining other advantages, such as tuneable absorption spectra, from the inorganic component. Conjugated polymers (organic part) absorb light as the donor and transport holes. Inorganic materials in hybrid cells are used as the acceptor and electron transporter in the structure. The dye-sensitized solar cell consists of a photo-sensitized anode, an
electrolyte, and a photo-electrochemical system. Hybrid solar cells based on dye-sensitized solar cells are fabricated by dye-absorbed inorganic materials and organic materials. Hybrid solar cells based on dye-sensitized solar cells are formed with inorganic materials (TiO2) and organic materials. Recently, Perovskites has been synthesised which has the capacity to achieve 23.3% efficiency. Perovskite has a generic form of ABX3. A perovskite solar cell includes a perovskite structured compound- a hybrid organic-inorganic lead or tin halide-based material as the light-harvesting active layer.
An efficient solar cell must absorb over a broad spectral range, from visible to near-infrared (near-IR) wavelengths (350 to ~950 nm), and convert the incident light effectively into charges. The charges must be collected at a high voltage with a suitable current in order to do useful work. A simple measure of solar cell effectiveness at generating voltage is the difference in energy between the optical bandgap of the absorber and the open-circuit voltage (Voc) generated by the solar cell under solar illumination of 100 mWcm-2. In this project low cost, high efficiency, more
stable (lifetime) and less toxic (greener product) hybrid solar cells are to be fabricated. Different combinations of organic and inorganic material will be used to find out the correct optimisation which will give the best possible results.