A lightweight polymer solar cell textile that functions when illuminated from either side

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Renewable Energy Engineering
• Textile Technology

Background:

• Developing flexible and wearable solar cells is crucial for next-generation portable electronics and energy harvesting.
• Existing flexible solar cells often face challenges with durability, weight, and efficiency under varying conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To engineer an all-solid-state, lightweight, and flexible polymer solar cell (PSC) textile.
• To achieve reasonable photovoltaic performance in a wearable format.
• To investigate the durability and light-incident-direction independence of the developed PSC textile.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a PSC textile using a metal wire mesh as the cathode, dip-coated with photoactive layers.
• Integration of two ultrathin, transparent, and aligned carbon nanotube sheets as the anode on both sides of the metal textile.
• Testing of photovoltaic performance, flexibility (bending cycles), and areal density.

Main Results:

• The developed PSC textile demonstrated reasonable photovoltaic performance and maintained efficiency after over 200 bending cycles (<3% variation).
• The unique sandwich structure ensured consistent energy conversion efficiency regardless of light irradiation direction.
• The PSC textile exhibited a significantly lower areal density (5.9 mg cm⁻²) compared to traditional flexible film-based PSCs (31.3 mg cm⁻²).

Conclusions:

• An all-solid-state, lightweight, flexible, and wearable PSC textile has been successfully developed.
• The PSC textile offers enhanced durability and consistent performance, making it suitable for wearable applications.
• The low areal density highlights its potential for integration into fabrics without adding significant weight or bulk.