Scientists from France, Russia and Kazakhstan have developed a method of fluorination which radically increased the efficiency of an organic solar cell. The team found incorporating fluorine atoms into a polymer-fullerene solar cell resulted in efficiency levels rising from 3.7% to 10.2%, according to a study published in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Journal of Materials Chemistry A. “Fluorine is one of the most abundant elements on Earth but it has been difficult for researchers to use this element as a source of energy because its abundance makes it hard to extract using conventional
Scientists from France, Russia and Kazakhstan have developed a method of fluorination which radically increased the efficiency of an organic solar cell. The team found incorporating fluorine atoms into a polymer-fullerene solar cell resulted in efficiency levels rising from 3.7% to 10.2%, according to a study published in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Journal of Materials Chemistry A. The team suggested that, with more work, organic solar cells could one day outperform their polysilicon counterparts.