Cradle-to-Grave Life Cycle Assessment of Solid-State Perovskite Solar Cells

With the advantages of low cost and high conversion efficiency, perovskite solar cell attracts enormous attention in recent years for research and development. However, the toxicity potential of lead used in perovskite solar cell manufacturing causes grave concern for its environmental performance. To understand and facilitate the sustainable development of perovskite solar cell, a comprehensive life cycle assessment has been conducted by using attributional life cycle assessment approach from cradle to grave, with manufacturing data from our lab experiments and literature. The results indicate that the major environmental problem is associated with system manufacturing, including gold cathode, organic solvent usage and recycling, and electricity utilization in component manufacturing process. Lead only contributes less than 1% of human toxicity and ecotoxicity potentials in the whole life cycle, which can be explained by the small amount usage of lead in perovskite dye preparation. More importantly, the uncertainties caused by life cycle inventory have been investigated in this study to show the importance of primary data source. In addition, a comparison of perovskite solar cell with conventional solar cells and other dye sensitized solar cells shows that perovskite solar cell could be a promising alternative technology for future clean power generations.