On May 25, Nature published a perspective article about lead immobilization in lead halide perovskite solar cells. Professor Zhang Hui from the School of Flexible Electronics (Future Technologies) is the first author of this article, Nanjing Tech University being the first author’s organization.

Lead halide perovskite solar cells show great application potential in the field of new energy, but the potential environmental hazards of lead is predicted to become the bottleneck of its industrial development. Although the weight ratio of lead in perovskite photovoltaic modules is relatively low, due to the high biocompatibility of lead ions, a very small proportion of lead in the modules can enter the food chain and exceed the per capita weekly lead intake limit set by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, thereby potentially jeopardizing human health. (see Fig. 1)

Fig. 1 Lead-leakage pathways from PSCs and estimation of their potential environment impact.

Lead immobilization is a strategy to block the transmission route by reducing the water solubility of lead ions, which can effectively inhibit the leakage of lead ions. Hence, Zhang Hui from Nanjing Tech University in China, Nam-Gyu Park from Sungkyunkwan University in Republic of Korea, Michael Grätzel from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, Antonio Abate from University of Naples Federico II in Italy et al. have fully demonstrated the importance of lead ions to the photoelectric properties of perovskite materials, elaborated on the lead leakage risk and environmental hazards of perovskites in the process of preparation and service, systematically compared the working mechanism and application prospects of the lead immobilization strategy, and proposed a standard lead-leakage test and related mathematical model for the reliable evaluation of the potential environmental risk of perovskite optoelectronics.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05938-4