Human Health Risk Assessment of Solvents and Lead Toxicity in Emerging Perovskite Solar Cells

Emerging lead halide perovskite photovoltaics (LHP PV) continue to spur research efforts due to their outstanding efficiency, low manufacturing costs, and fabrication versatility, potentially making them competitive with existing PV technologies. While ongoing efforts are focused on tackling stability and scalability of LHPs, the potential toxicity of solvents and lead (Pb) remains a major sustainability challenge to their large-scale commercialization. Immediate risks to human health of local communities must be evaluated for regulatory compliance and appropriate mitigation actions identified. Here, we present a screening-level human health risk assessment of 1) potential accidental solvent releases during manufacturing and 2) potential Pb releases following catastrophic breakage of LHP PV modules. We estimated exposure point concentrations of Pb in air, groundwater, and soil media using US EPA-compliant fate and exposure modeling to develop order-of-magnitude level estimations of potential risk. We found out that inhalation risk of commonly used N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) solvent for a resident downwind of a manufacturing site showed no adverse potential health effects under our maximum emissions assumptions. Pb exposure concentrations in air, groundwater, and soil could exceed US EPA maximum permissible limits under some worst-case scenarios upon catastrophic failure at large scales. Our results are sensitive to many assumptions including soil types, PV plant capacity, and leaching potential of the Pb. This study does not substitute the need for site-specific analysis, but it indicates the need for further attention to design fail-safe perovskite modules and safe manufacturing and deployment sites.