Solar cell progress hinges on more than just materials

Last year, Oxford PV installed the first commercial solar panels to incorporate perovskites at a solar farm in the US. Perovskite materials have long been hailed as a technology capable of delivering cheap renewable energy on a global scale and many researchers believe their power conversion efficiencies can climb higher in the years ahead.

As James Mitchell Crow reported in this recent feature, kesterite – another mineral-inspired material – is also attracting researchers’ interest in this space. Made from copper, zinc and tin combined with sulfur, selenium or a mixture of the two, kesterite is re-emerging after years of stagnation as a promising light absorber for thin-film solar cells. Like perovskites, kesterite’s bandgap and other electronic properties can be tuned by adjusting its composition, but it offers the advantages of being both free from rare or toxic elements and highly stable. However, as Mitchell Crow’s feature highlights, kesterite’s benefits must also be considered in the context of the solvents required in its production.