Project: Industrial roll-to-roll (R2R) printing of highly efficient non-fullerene acceptor (NFA)-based organic photovoltaics (OPV)

Acronym	NFA4R2ROPV (Reference Number: JTC-2_2019_081)
Duration	01/09/2019 - 30/08/2022
Project Topic	Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) are based on semiconducting carbon-based materials. In OPV industry they are fabricated out of benign (green) solvents using roll-to-roll (R2R) coating or printing techniques. Their working principle differs quite significantly from standard photovoltaics (PV), as light rays are absorbed in the bulk of organic layers not at a discrete interface. This leads to strongly different key performance indicators such as a good low and diffuse light performance, angular independence and an efficiency that rises with higher temperatures. State-of-the-art commercially available large-scale OPV is based on fullerene acceptors with a decent efficiency up to 5%. In recent years, OPVs based on novel non-fullerene acceptors (NFA) have gained attention, as efficiencies close to 15% could be demonstrated in the lab. However, this was achieved on the basis of using toxic or harmful chlorinated solvents. It is now of large interest to the OPV industry to exploit the potential of NFAs also in large-scale OPV manufacturing, which will help to take a further step forward in the commercialization of the technology. But in this respect, strictly benign solvents need to be deployed. This project brings together five world-leading partners (three from academia and two from industry) from the OPV community with the objective to demonstrate printed, large-scale, NFA-based OPV modules fabricated out of benign solvents with efficiencies well beyond the current state of the art. The consortium has the complementary expertise necessary for this project, including device design, morphology characterizations, photophysics, device physics, and large-scale printing. The availability of this broad range of expertise will allow us to achieve our objectives using both the fundamental mechanistic understanding and careful engineering of the fabrication processes. The results will significantly advance the state of the art of OPVs and contribute to provide affordable and clean energy. Environmentally friendly solvents for processing OPVs will also help to improve the working environment and minimize negative environmental impact of the OPV production.
Network	Solar Cofund 2
Call	Solar Cofund 2 Joint Call

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	Linköping University Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology	Coordinator	Sweden
2	University of Bayreuth Department of Macromolecular Chemistry I, Organic and Hybrid Electronics	Partner	Germany
3	Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials/ Photophysics and OptoElectronics	Partner	Netherlands
4	Epishine AB	Partner	Sweden
5	OPVIUS GmbH	Partner	Germany