Comparative Life Cycle Carbon Analysis of Different Recycling Processes for Perovskite Solar Cells

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) hold significant promise over other photovoltaic (PV) technologies for meeting future energy demands. For PSCs to become a sustainable PV technology capable of replacing conventional PV systems, evaluating their end-of-life environmental impact is crucial. This study evaluates and compares the environmental impacts of five recently developed recycling approaches for PSCs using life cycle carbon analysis (LCCA). Our results indicate that the environmental impacts of a novel recycling approach using potassium iodide (KI) solution are significantly lower, while processes involving dimethylformamide (DMF) and butyl-amine (BA) have higher impacts. The findings of this study will help identify environmentally friendly recycling options feasible for industry-scale implementation.