Scientists Develop Process for Mass Production of Perovskite Solar Panels on the Moon

Germany is the leader in Europe in generating electricity from sunlight. Now this experience can be taken literally to cosmic heights. German scientists have developed a process for producing perovskite solar panels from lunar regolith and propose manufacturing solar cells directly on the satellite. In their opinion, this will be cheaper and more efficient for everyone.

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The study was conducted by scientists from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Potsdam (University of Potsdam Institute of Physics and Astronomy). The work was published in the journal Device. Instead of expensively delivering ready-made solar panels to the Moon, 99% of their mass can be obtained from local resources. Local production will provide a record level of specific power of the elements – over 22-50 W/g, which is 20-100 times higher than the performance of traditional space solar batteries.

As the researchers note, it is possible to achieve such high specific power values ​​without compromising the reliability, mechanical stability and radiation protection of the panels. “Using anorthosite as a regolith imitator with high glass-forming capacity, we obtain transparent lunar glasses that allow the deposition of high-quality perovskites,” the scientists said.

The research team tested three device configurations based on opaque copper (Cu) electrodes in various substrate combinations, as well as transparent ultrathin metal and zinc oxide (IZO) electrodes.

«In configurations with substrates, the efficiency reached 9.4% (with ultra-thin metal contact) and 12.1% (with IZO) using lunar glass under non-optimized contact layer deposition conditions. These figures are comparable to the efficiency achieved on conventional glass substrates, the scientists emphasized. Further optimization of transparent contact layers to reduce the series resistance of devices can increase the efficiency to 17.5%.

The work showed that lunar glass is highly resistant to high-energy proton irradiation. Combined with the radiation resistance of perovskites, this could enable the creation of robust, radiation-resistant devices, paving the way for environmentally friendly lunar energy solutions.

The scientists believe that perovskite solar cells manufactured on the Moon using their technology could achieve an efficiency of over 23%. “Combining high radiation resistance, maximum power per unit mass, and ease of production, our perovskite solar cells based on lunar regolith will be the most promising way to power future lunar settlements,” the researchers concluded.