Collaborative Research: Sustainable Ambient Printed High Efficiency Organic PhotoVoltaics (SAPHE-OPV)

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Organic photovoltaic (OPV) technology has the potential of significant economic impact due to its unique features such as flexibility, low weight, and short energy payback time. In order to achieve greater commercial application, OPVs need to address significant technology challenges in large area device efficiency, stability, and benign/sustainable and safe production. This project will explore scalable, environmentally benign, sustainable and operator-safe ink-based processing methods to produce large scale OPV devices in ambient air conditions. The success of this project will contribute to the transformation of the Nation's energy infrastructure and help transition OPV technology to become a sustainable energy transformation technology that reduces fossil fuel use and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. The participating graduate and undergraduate researchers will benefit from the interdisciplinary nature of this project and will gain broad exposure to topics of material science, polymer chemistry, device physics and obtain marketable skills for careers in science and engineering. This work is embedded in the activities of the Organic and Carbon Electronics Laboratory (ORaCEL) at NCSU. Overall, the interdisciplinary nature of the research and its societal significance provides significant opportunities for educational outreach and curriculum development.The objective of this fundamental research project is to address organic photovoltaic technology needs for environmentally benign processes. This project will fabricate novel high efficiency semi-conducting polymer:non-fullerene based solar cells via blade-coating, a scalable fabrication technique. The OPV active layers will be processed with (a) petrochemical solvents such as anisole, o-methylanisole and THF that are safer and more benign than currently used chlorinated solvents, and (b) renewable, green biosolvents such as limonene, ethanol and potentially water. The molecular engineering needed will be guided by molecular interaction considerations and detailed structure-function-morphology relations. This project involves a multidisciplinary team comprising experts in synthesis (You), miscibility/thermodynamics (Ade), processing (Ade, You, Amassian), in-situ characterization (Amassian), and morphology characterization (Ade, Amassian). The overall strategy will be to provide feedback to the synthesis by validating molecular level guidance from Hansen solubility parameter calculations, miscibility measurements, and in-situ monitoring of morphology development. If successfully implemented, this work will improve process realization and economic feasibility and exceed current state-of-the-art.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.