Biomass-Derived Materials in Perovskite Solar Cells: Recent Progress and Future Prospects

As a promising photovoltaic (PV) technology, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have made significant progress in attaining high PCE, while challenges remain regarding stability and low cost. Conventional PSCs using noble metals (e. g., Au and Ag) as back electrodes and transparent conducting oxides as front electrodes contribute significantly to their high costs. PSCs comprising biomass-derived materials, such as biocarbon as back electrodes and flexible and transparent cellulosic substrates as front electrodes, offer a promising solution to address these issues. These approaches have the potential to simultaneously improve stability and decrease manufacturing costs, making PSCs closer to commercialization. This review article furnishes a comprehensive overview of recent developments in biocarbon-based perovskite solar cells (C-PSCs), focusing on various biomass-derived biocarbon materials utilized as back electrodes in different C-PSCs device structures. This article also compiles the advancement of flexible and transparent cellulosic substrate-based PSCs by highlighting the fundamentals of PSC and C-PSC architectures, the basics of biomass, and the synthesis of biocarbon. Finally, this review discusses the current challenges and future research directions for optimizing biocarbon materials and cellulosic substrates in PSC technology.