We have a problem with our current solar cells. They were built with very little thought towards end-of-life. Current solar panels tend to last twenty to thirty years. As those solar panels start to age, we are left with the challenge to think about how to recycle them. When the National Science Foundation (NSF) put out an interdisciplinary challenge for clean energy, Dr. Correa-Baena, Dr. Naomi Deneke, and Dr. Ilke Celik partnered to write a proposal to would tackle recycling of perovskite solar cells.

Dr. Correa-Baena is an Associate Professor and the Goizueta Junior Faculty Chair in the School of Materials Science and Engineering and the School of Chemistry. In this current project he’s joined by Dr. Deneke, an MSE Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow, and Dr. Celik, and Assistant Professor in the Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department at the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science at Portland State University. Dr. Correa-Baena credits the differences in their specialties (from materials chemistry, to mechanics, to techno and enviroeconomic analysis) as one of their strengths as a team. Dr. Correa-Baena works with developing deposition techniques including atomic layer deposition and thermal evaporation with an emphasis on interfacial chemistry and structure for multilayered devices, Dr. Deneke focuses on developing new methods to understand mechanical properties of materials, and Dr. Celik’s research is in developing sustainability concepts for infrastructure systems through both computation and experimental approaches.  

With this NSF grant, these three researchers are studying recycling in perovskite solar cells. The objective is to open new avenues of research which will hopefully lead to reusable and recyclable materials being used in the manufacturing of solar cells. With this 3-year, $1,000,000 grant, Dr. Correa-Baena, Dr. Deneke, and Dr. Celik believe they will be able to open doors and begin to construct a road map which takes solar technology from our current, unsustainable reality, to a more sustainable future for solar energy. We look forward to seeing what doors this team opens.