Recycling of Perovskite Films: Route toward Cost-Efficient and Environment-Friendly Perovskite Technology

Mixed organic-inorganic halide perovskite solar cells have reached unprecedentedly high efficiency in a short term. Two major challenges in its large-scale deployment is the material instability and hazardous lead waste. Several studies have identified that lead replacement with its other alternatives does not show the similar assurance. In this manuscript, we introduce the concept of recycling of the degraded perovskite film (PbI2), gaining back the initial optoelectronic properties as the best possible solution to avoid lead waste. The simple recycling procedure allows the utilization of some of the most expensive (fluorine-doped tin oxide), primary energy-consuming (TiO2), and toxic (Pb) parts of the solar cell, reducing the payback time even further. This addresses the major issues of instability and expensive toxic lead disposal, altogether. We have demonstrated the comparative study of feasibility of recycling in degraded perovskite films deposited by three different standard fabrication routes. Films fabricated via acetate route shows efficient recycling compared to the other routes, i.e., chloride and sequential deposition routes. Moreover, recycling in sequentially deposited films needs further optimization.