Solvent engineering of lead-free bismuth-based perovskite material for potential application of solar cell

In the past few years, hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite materials have attracted great attention due to their impressive properties for solar cells applications. However, perovskite methylammonium lead halide is facing with toxicity issues that may hinder the wide range application of the lead halidebased hybrid perovskite solar cells. The sources of toxicity of these solar cells are the pollution from the B-site of lead ion and the toxic solvents used in the fabricating the devices. Thus, environmentally friendly materials and non-toxic solvents are highly desired for large-scale manufacturing of perovskite solar cells. In this work, the chemical and optical properties of lead-free bismuth based MA3Bi2I9 perovskite fabricated using different compositions of non-toxic solvents are investigated through solvent engineering method. Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) /acetonitrile (ACN) /methyl-acetate (MA) solvents were employed as non-toxic solvent systems for the formation of homogeneous and good quality perovskite film. Hybrid organic-inorganic lead-free perovskite films were fabricated by mixing 1:1 M ratio compositions of CH3NH3I and BiI3 in different mixture of the solvents. The results show that the mixing solvent DMSO / ACN / MA at a volume ratio of 5:2:3 v / v, which incorporates the advantages of each solvent, has the best result among others. It is believed that by optimizing the solvent compositions, high performance lead-free bismuth-based perovskite film using non-toxic solvents could be obtained for potential solar cells application. (c) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Regional Congress on Membrane Technology 2020 (RCOM 2020) and Regional Conference Environmental Engineering (RCEnvE 2020).