Sustainable Solvent Recycling Strategy Toward Environmentally Viable Perovskite Solar Cells

Abstract In the pursuit of eco-friendly and cost-effective commercialization of perovskite solar cells (PSCs), efforts have been made to develop recycling technologies. However, most current methods use toxic solvents that can potentially harm human health and the environment. Here, we introduce a novel approach that recovers and reuses toxic solvents used in the recycling process. Detailed evaluations were conducted to assess the effects of residual substances in PSC-dissolved solvents, and a two-step selective dissolution process was utilized for effective solvent recycling. PSCs were immersed in chlorobenzene and N,N′-dimethylformamide solvents in sequence, and each solvent was recovered for reuse in the re-fabrication of PSCs. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of a toxic solvent recycling process for PSC re-fabrication, which achieved a power conversion efficiency of 25.02%, comparable to that of the original PSCs (25.12%), as well as recycling of the dissolved hole conducting materials.