Environmentally friendly renewable biosolvents could help clean up the manufacture of solar panels.

Organic solar cells could be made even greener by switching the solvents used in their manufacture. Today’s toxic chlorinated solvents can be replaced by plant-derived alternatives without affecting the resulting solar cells’ light-capturing performance, KAUST researchers have shown.

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) are one of the greenest solar cell technologies, contributing as little as three grams of CO2 equivalent carbon emissions per KW of energy. “However, their fabrication still relies on halogenated solvents that, on top of being linked to reproductive hazards and cancer, are derived from petrochemical processes,” says Daniel Corzo, a Ph.D. student in Derya Baran's lab, who led the work.

“We wanted to find green alternatives to protect the health and safety of workers when these cells are manufactured at a larger scale and to further reduce the carbon footprint of OPVs.”