The photovoltaic (PV) technology plays a significant role in the global energy transition and perovskite solar cells (PSC) have been experiencing rapid development in the past few years. The life cycle analysis (LCA) method evaluates the possible environmental impacts during each life stage of one product, and applying this method to the production processes of perovskite solar cells can assess the environmental implications in each phase of the PSC life cycle, from the initial raw material extraction to manufacturing, operation, and end-of-life stages.
This thesis mainly focuses on the cradle-to-gate stages of LCA, more specifically in raw material extraction and manufacturing of one perovskite PV module. This work selects a perovskite solar module with a mesoporous TiO2 scaffold as the studied module, then defines the goal and scope, including the definition of the research goal, functional unit and system boundaries of this LCA study. Followed by the selection of Ecoinvent V3.8 and Idemat 2023 databases, a new life cycle inventory (LCI) is created both in material and energy aspects. Based on the existing literature inventory, some changes and improvements are made to specialise the life cycle inventory data. Due to the limitation of existing databases, the missing materials and data are collected, self-calculated or replaced to complete the LCI. After calculating and integrating the LCI data by mass allocation, three impact categories are chosen to conduct the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), which are separately climate change, human health and resource use (fossil). Next, the thesis compares the LCIA results in three different perovskite PV modules, one is the studied perovskite PV module with a silver cathode, one is the same studied module but with a gold cathode, and the other is the literature’s perovskite PV module (with a gold cathode). This thesis compares the environmental impact results in material, energy consumption and total three perspectives, simultaneously analysing the different LCIA performances between the metal gold and silver. Finally this work exerts the
contribution analysis on three life cycle impact categories, explains the LCIA results of three different perovskite solar modules and proposes further research advice.
The LCIA results illustrate that compared to the literature’s module, the studied perovskite PV module with silver cathode has the lowest life cycle environmental impacts in all three impact categories. More specifically, 50% in climate change, 12% in human health and 33% in resource use (fossil) compared to the literature. Furthermore, the metal gold has the highest contribution in all three categories, FTO and energy contribute the second and third both in climate change and resource use (fossil), and silver takes the second occupation in human toxicity.