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Sirkiä S, Masood MT, Hadadian M, Qudsia S, Rosqvist E, Smått JH. Scalable Lead Acetate-Based Perovskite Thin Films Prepared via Controlled Nucleation and Growth under Near Ambient Conditions. ACS Omega 2024; 9:8266-8273. [PMID: 38405520 PMCID: PMC10882608 DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.3c08912] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2023] [Revised: 12/26/2023] [Accepted: 01/24/2024] [Indexed: 02/27/2024]
Abstract
Lead acetate (PbAc2) is a promising precursor salt for large-scale production of perovskite solar cells, as its high solubility in polar solvents enables the use of scalable deposition methods such as inkjet printing and dip coating. In this study, uniform (40-230 nm) PbAc2 thin films were prepared via dip coating under near ambient lab conditions by tuning the PbAc2 precursor concentration. In a second step, these PbAc2 films were converted to methylammonium lead iodide (MAPI) perovskite by immersing them into methylammonium iodide (MAI) solutions. The nucleation and growth processes at play were controlled by altering key parameters, such as air humidity during the lead acetate deposition and MAI concentration when converting the PbAc2 film to MAPI. The research revealed that lead acetate is sensitive toward humidity and can undergo hydroxylation reactions affecting the reproducibility and quality of the produced solar cells. However, drying the PbAc2 films under low relative humidity (<1%) prior to conversion enables the production of high-quality MAPI films without the need of glovebox processing. Furthermore, SEM characterization revealed that the surface coverage of the MAPI film increased significantly with an increase of the MAI concentration at the conversion stage. The resulting morphology of the MAPI films can be explained by a standard nucleation and growth mechanism. Preliminary solar cells were produced using these MAPI films as the active layer. The best performing devices were obtained with a 140 nm thick lead acetate film converted to MAPI using a 12 mg/mL MAI solution, as these parameters resulted in a good surface coverage of the MAPI film. The results show that the methodology holds potential toward large-scale production of perovskite solar cells under near ambient conditions, which substantially simplifies the fabrication and lowers the production costs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Saara Sirkiä
- Laboratory
of Molecular Science and Engineering, Åbo
Akademi University, Henriksgatan 2, Åbo FI-20500, Finland
| | - Muhammad Talha Masood
- Department
of Materials Engineering, School of Chemical & Materials Engineering, National University of Science & Technology (NUST), H 12 sector, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
| | - Mahboubeh Hadadian
- Department
of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Technology, University of Turku, Turku FI-20014, Finland
| | - Syeda Qudsia
- Laboratory
of Molecular Science and Engineering, Åbo
Akademi University, Henriksgatan 2, Åbo FI-20500, Finland
| | - Emil Rosqvist
- Laboratory
of Molecular Science and Engineering, Åbo
Akademi University, Henriksgatan 2, Åbo FI-20500, Finland
| | - Jan-Henrik Smått
- Laboratory
of Molecular Science and Engineering, Åbo
Akademi University, Henriksgatan 2, Åbo FI-20500, Finland
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El Hajam M, Kandri NI, Zerouale A, Wang X, Gustafsson J, Wang L, Mäkilä E, Hupa L, Xu C. Lignocellulosic Nanocrystals from Sawmill Waste as Biotemplates for Free-Surfactant Synthesis of Photocatalytically Active Porous Silica. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 2022; 14:19547-19560. [PMID: 35441506 PMCID: PMC9073848 DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c02550] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/09/2023]
Abstract
This work presents a new approach for more effective valorization of sawmill wastes (Beech and Cedar sawdusts), which were used as new sources for the extraction of lignin-containing and lignin-free cellulose II nanocrystals (L-CNCs and CNCs). It was shown that the properties of the extracted nanocrystals depend on the nature of the used sawdust (softwood or hardwood sawdusts). L-CNCs and CNCs derived from Beech fibers were long and thin and also had a higher crystallinity, compared with those obtained from Cedar fibers. Thanks to their interesting characteristics and their high crystallinity, these nanocrystals have been used without changing their surfaces as template cores for nanostructured hollow silica-free-surfactant synthesis for photocatalysis to degrade methylene blue (MB) dye. The synthesis was performed with a simple and efficient sol-gel method using tetraethyl orthosilicate as the silica precursor followed by calcination at 650 °C. The obtained materials were denoted as B/L-CNC/nanoSiO2, B/CNC/nanoSiO2, C/L-CNC/nanoSiO2, and C/CNC/nanoSiO2, when the used L-CNC and CNC cores are from Beech and Cedar, respectively. By comprehensive analysis, it was demonstrated that the nanostructured silica were quite uniform and had a similar morphology as the templates. Also, the pore sizes were closely related to the dimensions of L-CNC and CNC templates, with high specific surface areas. The photocatalytic degradation of MB dye was about 94, 98, 74, and 81% for B/L-CNC/nanoSiO2, B/CNC/nanoSiO2, C/L-CNC/nanoSiO2, and C/CNC/nanoSiO2, respectively. This study provides a simple route to extract L-CNCs and CNCs as organic templates to prepare nanostructured silica. The different silica structures showed excellent photodegradation of MB.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maryam El Hajam
- Processes,
Materials and Environment Laboratory (PMEL), Faculty of Sciences and
Techniques, Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University, Road Imouzzer, BP 2202 Fez, Morocco
- Signals,
Systems and Components Laboratory (SSCL), Faculty of Sciences and
Techniques, Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University, Road Imouzzer, BP 2202 Fez, Morocco
- Laboratory
of Natural Materials Technology, Åbo
Akademi University, Henrikinkatu
2, FI-20500 Turku, Finland
| | - Noureddine Idrissi Kandri
- Signals,
Systems and Components Laboratory (SSCL), Faculty of Sciences and
Techniques, Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University, Road Imouzzer, BP 2202 Fez, Morocco
| | - Abdelaziz Zerouale
- Processes,
Materials and Environment Laboratory (PMEL), Faculty of Sciences and
Techniques, Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University, Road Imouzzer, BP 2202 Fez, Morocco
| | - Xiaoju Wang
- Laboratory
of Natural Materials Technology, Åbo
Akademi University, Henrikinkatu
2, FI-20500 Turku, Finland
- Pharmaceutical
Sciences Laboratory, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Åbo Akademi University, Tykistökatu 6A, FI-20520 Turku, Finland
| | - Jan Gustafsson
- Laboratory
of Natural Materials Technology, Åbo
Akademi University, Henrikinkatu
2, FI-20500 Turku, Finland
| | - Luyao Wang
- Laboratory
of Natural Materials Technology, Åbo
Akademi University, Henrikinkatu
2, FI-20500 Turku, Finland
| | - Ermei Mäkilä
- Laboratory
of Industrial Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Turku, FI-20520 Turku, Finland
| | - Leena Hupa
- Laboratory
of Molecular Science and Technology, Åbo
Akademi University, Henrikinkatu
2, FI-20500 Turku, Finland
| | - Chunlin Xu
- Laboratory
of Natural Materials Technology, Åbo
Akademi University, Henrikinkatu
2, FI-20500 Turku, Finland
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