Over 14% Efficiency Folding-Flexible ITO-free Organic Solar Cells Enabled by Eco-friendly Acid-Processed Electrodes

Wei Song; Ruixiang Peng; Like Huang; Chang Liu; Billy Fanady; Tao Lei; Ling Hong; Jinfeng Ge; Antonio Facchetti; Ziyi Ge

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2020.100981

Over 14% Efficiency Folding-Flexible ITO-free Organic Solar Cells Enabled by Eco-friendly Acid-Processed Electrodes

Wei Song, Ruixiang Peng, Like Huang, Chang Liu, Billy Fanady, Tao Lei, Ling Hong, Jinfeng Ge, Antonio Facchetti, Ziyi Ge^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Chemistry

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

44 Scopus citations

Abstract

Environment-friendly manufacturing and mechanical robustness are imperative for commercialization of flexible OSCs as green-energy source, especially in portable and wearable self-powered flexible electronics. Although, the commonly adopted PEDOT:PSS electrodes that are treated with severely corrosive and harmful acid lack foldability. Herein, efficient folding-flexible OSCs with highly conductive and foldable PEDOT:PSS electrodes processed with eco-friendly cost-effective acid and polyhydroxy compound are demonstrated. The acid treatment endows PEDOT:PSS electrodes with high conductivity. Meanwhile, polyhydroxy compound doping contributes to excellent bending flexibility and foldability due to the better film adhesion between PEDOT:PSS and PET substrate. Accordingly, folding-flexible OSCs with high efficiency of 14.17% were achieved. After 1,000 bending or folding cycles, the device retained over 90% or 80% of its initial efficiency, respectively. These results represent one of the best performances for ITO-free flexible OSC reported so far and demonstrate a novel approach toward commercialized efficient and foldable green-processed OSCs.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	100981
Journal	iScience
Volume	23
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2020.100981
State	Published - Apr 24 2020

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFE0106000), National Natural Science Foundation of China (51773212, 21574144, 21674123 and 61705240), the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (21925506), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LR16B040002), Ningbo S&T Innovation 2025 Major Special Programme (2018B10055), Ningbo Municipal Science and Technology Innovative Research Team (2015B11002 and 2016B10005), CAS Key Project of Frontier Science Research (QYZDB-SSW-SYS030), and CAS Key Project of International Cooperation (174433KYSB20160065). W.S. performed the fabrication and characterization of folding-flexible solar cells, including optical and electrical characterization, adhesion test, stability test, and flexing tests of PEDOT:PSS films. W.S. also conducted the data analysis. R.P. conducted the XPS data analysis. L.K.H. and R.P. conducted the EDS data analysis. B.F. and J.G. performed the AFM measurement and analyzed the results. C.L. L.H. and T.L. provided feedbacks regarding overall data analysis. The project was supervised and directed by Z.G. W.S. wrote the manuscript with large contributions from B.F. R.P. L.K.H. A.F. and Z.G. All authors commented on the manuscript for improvements. The authors declare no competing financial interest. This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China ( 2017YFE0106000 ), National Natural Science Foundation of China ( 51773212 , 21574144 , 21674123 and 61705240 ), the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars ( 21925506 ), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China ( LR16B040002 ), Ningbo S&T Innovation 2025 Major Special Programme ( 2018B10055 ), Ningbo Municipal Science and Technology Innovative Research Team ( 2015B11002 and 2016B10005 ), CAS Key Project of Frontier Science Research ( QYZDB-SSW-SYS030 ), and CAS Key Project of International Cooperation ( 174433KYSB20160065 ).

Keywords

Energy Storage
Materials Mechanics
Mechanical Property

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1016/j.isci.2020.100981

Cite this

@article{4e0b91a576264fb3b7525db4cc5114cf,

title = "Over 14% Efficiency Folding-Flexible ITO-free Organic Solar Cells Enabled by Eco-friendly Acid-Processed Electrodes",

abstract = "Environment-friendly manufacturing and mechanical robustness are imperative for commercialization of flexible OSCs as green-energy source, especially in portable and wearable self-powered flexible electronics. Although, the commonly adopted PEDOT:PSS electrodes that are treated with severely corrosive and harmful acid lack foldability. Herein, efficient folding-flexible OSCs with highly conductive and foldable PEDOT:PSS electrodes processed with eco-friendly cost-effective acid and polyhydroxy compound are demonstrated. The acid treatment endows PEDOT:PSS electrodes with high conductivity. Meanwhile, polyhydroxy compound doping contributes to excellent bending flexibility and foldability due to the better film adhesion between PEDOT:PSS and PET substrate. Accordingly, folding-flexible OSCs with high efficiency of 14.17% were achieved. After 1,000 bending or folding cycles, the device retained over 90% or 80% of its initial efficiency, respectively. These results represent one of the best performances for ITO-free flexible OSC reported so far and demonstrate a novel approach toward commercialized efficient and foldable green-processed OSCs.",

keywords = "Energy Storage, Materials Mechanics, Mechanical Property",

author = "Wei Song and Ruixiang Peng and Like Huang and Chang Liu and Billy Fanady and Tao Lei and Ling Hong and Jinfeng Ge and Antonio Facchetti and Ziyi Ge",

note = "Funding Information: This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFE0106000), National Natural Science Foundation of China (51773212, 21574144, 21674123 and 61705240), the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (21925506), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LR16B040002), Ningbo S&T Innovation 2025 Major Special Programme (2018B10055), Ningbo Municipal Science and Technology Innovative Research Team (2015B11002 and 2016B10005), CAS Key Project of Frontier Science Research (QYZDB-SSW-SYS030), and CAS Key Project of International Cooperation (174433KYSB20160065). W.S. performed the fabrication and characterization of folding-flexible solar cells, including optical and electrical characterization, adhesion test, stability test, and flexing tests of PEDOT:PSS films. W.S. also conducted the data analysis. R.P. conducted the XPS data analysis. L.K.H. and R.P. conducted the EDS data analysis. B.F. and J.G. performed the AFM measurement and analyzed the results. C.L. L.H. and T.L. provided feedbacks regarding overall data analysis. The project was supervised and directed by Z.G. W.S. wrote the manuscript with large contributions from B.F. R.P. L.K.H. A.F. and Z.G. All authors commented on the manuscript for improvements. The authors declare no competing financial interest. Funding Information: This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China ( 2017YFE0106000 ), National Natural Science Foundation of China ( 51773212 , 21574144 , 21674123 and 61705240 ), the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars ( 21925506 ), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China ( LR16B040002 ), Ningbo S&T Innovation 2025 Major Special Programme ( 2018B10055 ), Ningbo Municipal Science and Technology Innovative Research Team ( 2015B11002 and 2016B10005 ), CAS Key Project of Frontier Science Research ( QYZDB-SSW-SYS030 ), and CAS Key Project of International Cooperation ( 174433KYSB20160065 ). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 The Author(s)",

year = "2020",

month = apr,

day = "24",

doi = "10.1016/j.isci.2020.100981",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "23",

journal = "iScience",

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TY - JOUR

T1 - Over 14% Efficiency Folding-Flexible ITO-free Organic Solar Cells Enabled by Eco-friendly Acid-Processed Electrodes

AU - Song, Wei

AU - Peng, Ruixiang

AU - Huang, Like

AU - Liu, Chang

AU - Fanady, Billy

AU - Lei, Tao

AU - Hong, Ling

AU - Ge, Jinfeng

AU - Facchetti, Antonio

AU - Ge, Ziyi

N1 - Funding Information: This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFE0106000), National Natural Science Foundation of China (51773212, 21574144, 21674123 and 61705240), the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (21925506), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LR16B040002), Ningbo S&T Innovation 2025 Major Special Programme (2018B10055), Ningbo Municipal Science and Technology Innovative Research Team (2015B11002 and 2016B10005), CAS Key Project of Frontier Science Research (QYZDB-SSW-SYS030), and CAS Key Project of International Cooperation (174433KYSB20160065). W.S. performed the fabrication and characterization of folding-flexible solar cells, including optical and electrical characterization, adhesion test, stability test, and flexing tests of PEDOT:PSS films. W.S. also conducted the data analysis. R.P. conducted the XPS data analysis. L.K.H. and R.P. conducted the EDS data analysis. B.F. and J.G. performed the AFM measurement and analyzed the results. C.L. L.H. and T.L. provided feedbacks regarding overall data analysis. The project was supervised and directed by Z.G. W.S. wrote the manuscript with large contributions from B.F. R.P. L.K.H. A.F. and Z.G. All authors commented on the manuscript for improvements. The authors declare no competing financial interest. Funding Information: This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China ( 2017YFE0106000 ), National Natural Science Foundation of China ( 51773212 , 21574144 , 21674123 and 61705240 ), the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars ( 21925506 ), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China ( LR16B040002 ), Ningbo S&T Innovation 2025 Major Special Programme ( 2018B10055 ), Ningbo Municipal Science and Technology Innovative Research Team ( 2015B11002 and 2016B10005 ), CAS Key Project of Frontier Science Research ( QYZDB-SSW-SYS030 ), and CAS Key Project of International Cooperation ( 174433KYSB20160065 ). Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s)

PY - 2020/4/24

Y1 - 2020/4/24

N2 - Environment-friendly manufacturing and mechanical robustness are imperative for commercialization of flexible OSCs as green-energy source, especially in portable and wearable self-powered flexible electronics. Although, the commonly adopted PEDOT:PSS electrodes that are treated with severely corrosive and harmful acid lack foldability. Herein, efficient folding-flexible OSCs with highly conductive and foldable PEDOT:PSS electrodes processed with eco-friendly cost-effective acid and polyhydroxy compound are demonstrated. The acid treatment endows PEDOT:PSS electrodes with high conductivity. Meanwhile, polyhydroxy compound doping contributes to excellent bending flexibility and foldability due to the better film adhesion between PEDOT:PSS and PET substrate. Accordingly, folding-flexible OSCs with high efficiency of 14.17% were achieved. After 1,000 bending or folding cycles, the device retained over 90% or 80% of its initial efficiency, respectively. These results represent one of the best performances for ITO-free flexible OSC reported so far and demonstrate a novel approach toward commercialized efficient and foldable green-processed OSCs.

AB - Environment-friendly manufacturing and mechanical robustness are imperative for commercialization of flexible OSCs as green-energy source, especially in portable and wearable self-powered flexible electronics. Although, the commonly adopted PEDOT:PSS electrodes that are treated with severely corrosive and harmful acid lack foldability. Herein, efficient folding-flexible OSCs with highly conductive and foldable PEDOT:PSS electrodes processed with eco-friendly cost-effective acid and polyhydroxy compound are demonstrated. The acid treatment endows PEDOT:PSS electrodes with high conductivity. Meanwhile, polyhydroxy compound doping contributes to excellent bending flexibility and foldability due to the better film adhesion between PEDOT:PSS and PET substrate. Accordingly, folding-flexible OSCs with high efficiency of 14.17% were achieved. After 1,000 bending or folding cycles, the device retained over 90% or 80% of its initial efficiency, respectively. These results represent one of the best performances for ITO-free flexible OSC reported so far and demonstrate a novel approach toward commercialized efficient and foldable green-processed OSCs.

KW - Energy Storage

KW - Materials Mechanics

KW - Mechanical Property

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VL - 23

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ER -

Over 14% Efficiency Folding-Flexible ITO-free Organic Solar Cells Enabled by Eco-friendly Acid-Processed Electrodes

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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