Low cost plastic solar cells

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Solar energy represents an attractive solution to fulfill our needs regarding green and renewable energy while protecting the environment at the same time. For example, the sun provides in one hour what the humanity consumes during one year. However, the large scale development of this technology is somewhat limited by the relatively high cost of an installed solar panel. Polymeric semiconductors are considered to be one of the most promising ways to lower the cost of the energy generated by solar cells since they can be solubilized in common solvents and processed using low-cost roll-to-roll coating techniques. The last five years have witnessed significant advances in bulk heterojunction solar cells with power conversion efficiency (PCE) approaching now the threshold values for large-scale commercialisation (a PCE of 8-10% with a lifetime of 5-10 years). In order to keep the cost of plastic BHJ solar cells down, we recently developed a green, reliable, versatile and cost effective polymerization method called Direct Heteroarylation polymerization (DHAP). We successfully obtained well-defined, high molecular weight and tin free materials which are among the most efficient materials actually studied in plastic solar cells. During this project, new highly efficient semiconducting materials will be prepared using Direct Heteroarylation Polymerization (but not limited to) and fully evaluated in real-life plastic solar cells modules. This project will contribute to both the reduction of the cost of the energy produce by photovoltaic devices (below 1$/Watt or few ¢/kWh) and to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada or worldwide.