INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT IN Volume-5,Special Issue (Apr-16)

TECHNOLOGY ISSN (O) :- 2349-3585

Plastic Solar Cell:A Review

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Niharika Dosaya1, Mrs. Meenu Bhati2
12
B.Tech Scholar Asst. Professor , Department of Electronic &Communication
Global College Of Technology, Jaipur, India.

ABSTRACT: The global demand for energy is increasing
constantly. The primary source of energy is fossil fuel (like
coal, diesel), which are decreasing day by day due to more
energy demand and there is global warming problem due to
these sources. The consumption of the energy is directly
proportional to the progress of the mankind with ever growing
population, improvement in the living standard of the
humanity, industrialization of the developing countries like
India. Therefore, we need non-conventional energy, in order
to fully fill the energy needs. As coal, natural gas, oil and
nuclear fuel prices will continue to increase solar energy
more cost-effective. Solar panels convert solar energy into
electrical energy active solar devices. They have a variety of
rectangular shape, and is usually installed in combination
produce electricity. In the energy conversion efficiency of
organic solar cells latest improvements Bluff, renewed focus
on the possibility of actual large-scale use of these devices.
The main components of a solar panel is a solar cell, or with
low efficiency and high cost of solar cells. Plastic solar cell
technology is based on conjugated polymers and molecules.
Polymer solar cells have attracted considerable attention due
to its offer environmentally safe, flexible, lightweight,
inexpensive, the potential of high-efficiency solar cells in the
past few years. In this paper, the basic principles of plastic
solar cells operating transactions, we show that the
implementation of nanorad and screen printing technology in
the manufacture of bulk heterojunction solar cells based on
organic compounds.
INTRODUCTION:
Since the pool of available resources is depleted, those eternal
and environmental resources, increasing demand. With the
increasing energy needs of everyone for a sunny one option is
an important source of heat. One such form of solar energy.
Solar energy will be just solving all the problems. As such solar
energy is very useful. In the middle of all photovoltaic devices
are two separate layers of material, there is a wealth of those
functions of the electronic as "negative" and a rich and electron
holes (vacant, positively charged energy spaces) that functions
as a "anode." When the light from the sun or some other photon
is absorbed, its energy is transferred to the cathode of an extra
electron, so that they create a flow of positive and negative
flows start a new hole, resulting in current can then be used to
drive other devices. However, the traditional solar cells is
mainly due to the construction process and have a limited
number of applications in the use of materials. The latest
invention has opened the door to a lot of use is creeping in
already developed plastic solar panel applications. In the use of
renewable forms of energy sector, as an element of silicon did
not make a mark in a wide range of solar panel applications
using nanotechnology created in the solar cell to overcome this
problem, thereby enhancing the opportunities for efficiency.
Normal solar panels is rigid), expensive, and their size is
determined by limitations such manufacturing technologies,
limiting their scalability, a large area of the plate.
Fig 1: Plastic Solar Cell
PLASTIC SOLAR CELL:
The discovery of conductive plastic (1977) (a double bond
polymer features combine to make electrons move through
them), prof.Alan Haig was awarded the Nobel Prize for this

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Paper Title:- Plastic Solar Cell
since; there has been interest in the use of these materials in
the manufacture of solar cells. Scientists have invented, you
can put the power of the sun into electricity, even on cloudy
day’s plastic solar cells. Plastic solar cells are not new.
However, existing materials can only take advantage of the
sun's visible light. And half of the sun's power lies in the
visible spectrum, and the other half lies in the infrared
spectrum. This new material is a first plastic compound; it can
use the infrared part. Plastic materials using nanotechnology
and contains 1stgeneration solar cell may use invisible
infrared rays of the sun. This breakthrough allows us to
believe that plastic solar cells could one day be higher than
current solar cell efficiency.
Fig 2: Schematic diagram of a hybrid "plastic" solar cell
with a nanorod/polymer layer sandwiched between two
electrodes.
Polymers offer the advantage of solution processing at room
temperature, which is cheaper and allows for using fully
flexible substrates, such as plastics. Thus, replacing the silicon
with polymer nanowires would make the solar cell much
lighter, and eventually cheaper. The technology takes
advantage of recent advances in nanotechnology, specifically
the production of nanocrystals and nanorods. These are
chemically pure clusters of 100 to 100,000 atoms with
dimensions on the order of a nanometer, or a billionth of a
meter. The researchers combined specially designed nano
particles called quantum dots with a polymer to make the
plastic that can detect energy in the infrared. With further
advances the new plastic solar cell could allow up to 30% of
sun’s radiant energy to be harnessed completely when
compared to only 6% in today plastic best plastic solar cells. A
large amount of sun’s energy could be harnessed through solar
farms and used to power all our energy needs. This could
potentially displace other source of electrical production that
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produce greenhouse gases like coal. Solar energy reaching the
earth is 10000 times than what we consume.
DESIGNING OF PLASTIC SOLAR CELLS:
Fig 3:Schematic device structure for polymer/fullerene bulk
heterojunction solar cells. The active layer is sandwiched
between two contacts: an indium-tin-oxide electrode coated
with a hole transport layer PEDOT:PSS and an aluminum
top electrode.
Designed plastic solar cells are actually a hybrid, dispersed in
an organic polymer or plastic tiny nanorods. Plastic solar cells
created by the Berkeley research group is actually a hybrid,
dispersed in an organic polymer or plastic tiny nanorods. The
figure below shows mixed plastic solar cells having nanorod /
polymer layer sandwiched between two electrodes. An active
layer, a mere 200 nanometers thick, is embedded in the
semiconductor polymer nanorods confusion. Solution was
evaporated in vacuum and processing techniques is the method
of production of the most commonly used plastic solar cell
film. Polymer decomposition under excessive heat and
excessive evaporation molar mass. Thus, most of the
photovoltaic element is based polymer solution at low
temperature. Printing / coating technique is used to deposit the
conjugated semiconducting polymers. The active layer is
sandwiched between two contacts: PEDOT coated with a hole
transport layer of indium tin oxide electrode: PSS and
aluminum top electrode. Plastic solar cells are manufactured in
sandwich geometry. As the substrate, a transparent conductive
electrode (e.g., glass or plastic coated with ITO) is used. ITO
(indium tin oxide) electrodes are transparent and conductive but
expensive. Search for alternatives to ITO, and the nanotube
network electrode may work. The substrate electrode may be
constructed by chemical etching. In the transparent conductive
substrate, PEDOT: PSS doped with polystyrene sulfonic acid,
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Paper Title:- Plastic Solar Cell
poly (ethylene), is coated from an aqueous solution. This
PEDOT: PSS layer to improve the surface quality of the ITO
electrode and the promotion of the hole injection / extraction. In
addition, the work function of the electrode can be obtained by
oxidation of PEDOT layer chemical / electrochemical reduction
reaction varies.
The active layer using a vacuum deposition or solution
coating techniques, such as described above. Phenyl- propyl-1
- which is 1- (3-methoxycarbonyl) derived nanorods [6, 6] -
methanofullerene (PCBM) with a so-called (P3HT) P3HT -
poly - (3hexylthiophene) transparent electrode It is coated
with a plastic semiconductor mixing the mixture. Aluminium
coating acts as a back electrode to complete the device.
Nanorods like wires. When they absorb specific wavelengths
of light, electron vacancies in the crystal plus electron hole
they produce is around like an electron. Length until it is
collected by the aluminium electrode rod travel of the
electrons. The hole was transferred to a plastic, which is
known as the hole of a carrier, and transmitted to the
electrodes produces a current.
Donor - acceptor can be prepared by dissolving a mixture of
donor and acceptor elements (or solvent mixture) which is in a
common solvent to prepare a solution of the so-called
processing solutions and processing needs water soluble
polymer. By use of a blend of the aforementioned deposition
techniques. Sometimes, using a water-soluble monomer cast
as a post deposition film after the polymerization reaction.
Soluble precursor polymer may also be converted into the end
of the reaction the conversion after deposition of semi
conductive form. Advantage of this latter approach is that the
film of the obtained conjugated polymer is insoluble.
Plastic solar cell, spin coating, blade coating, and screen
printing method is applied. This massive printing / coating
technology has opened up the possibility for the production of
a low energy consumption scaled up.
SCREEN-PRINTING TECHNOLOGY:
Screen printing is a large area of the dye sheet fast,
inexpensive deposition technique commonly used in industry.
From this standpoint, it is the ideal technology for mass
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production of polymer-based solar cells. In addition, screen
printing allows to easily define the composition of the
substrate deposition area receives. It is important, for
example, a photoelectric conversion device manufacturing
integrated into other electronic devices containing a substrate
is provided. Further, in the production of large-area energy
collection system, it is necessary to manufacture a number of
individual solar cells connected together. Screen printing,
individual devices can easily be on the same substrate, in
order to optimize the limited power of the entire system. In
industrial processes, the film is generally made by screen
printing with a thickness greater than 0.5mm. The thickness of
the polymer layer is manufactured by screen printing is less
than 100nm, the organic light emitting diode as the entire
transport layer have recently shown. However, in this case,
the printed film is not smooth and is visible to the naked eye
on the screen footprint. Here, we use the screen printing in
bulk heterojunction photovoltaic device to deposit a smooth
and thin active layer of conjugated polymer / fullerene blend
having a thickness of 40nm and root mean square (RMS) of
the surface roughness of 2.6 nm.
Fig 4: Schematic of process
When monochromatic light having a wavelength of 488 nm
by the irradiation of the equipment produced by the power
conversion efficiency of 4.3%. Bulk heterojunction solar cell
structure. The principle of operation of the apparatus,
described elsewhere1, poly (ethylene dioxythiophene) in a
150 nm thick film doped with polystyrene sulfonic acid
[(PEDOT: PSS), Bayer] is spin-cast from an aqueous solution
to a first indium tin oxide (ITO) / glass substrate, wherein the
thickness of the ITO is 120 nm (about 40 volts / square), and
in the visible range of 85% -90% transmission. In the
ISSN:-2349-3585 |www.ijrdt.org
Paper Title:- Plastic Solar Cell
PEDOT: PSS layer was then dried in vacuum at 140 ℃ 3
hours. An active layer, a conjugated polymer [poly (2-
methoxy -5- (3,7dimethyloctyloxy) - 1,4- phenylenevinylene)]
blends (MDMO-PPV) and methanofullerene ([ 6,6] - C61-
phenyl-butyric acid methyl ester) (1: 4 (by weight) (PCBM),
and then deposited onto a PEDOT: PSS layer from the
average thickness of the screen printing technique in
chlorobenzene in the active layer above the surface of 40nm
described a screen printing process. during the deposition
process, the screen is placed a few millimeters of the substrate
when the polymer solution is loaded onto the screen, a rubber
'blade' and then over a few centimeters per second, the speed
of sweep on the surface of the screen, it is temporarily
exposed to the substrate. at this point, the solution flows from
the screen surface to the substrate. When the blade and then
through a region of the screen separated from the substrate,
leaving the solution to dry to give a continuous film. In this
study, the use of a number of meshes having 30 mm screw
diameter and 181 / cm screen. As a cathode, 130 nm thick
aluminum film is deposited through a shadow mask to heat an
active layer is defined as 0.12 cm 2 active device region.
Aluminum 0.2-0.7 nm / sec from the heat under the operating
pressure of 1026 Torre deposition in a high vacuum. To
characterize the device with the 488 nm line of an argon laser
having an intensity of irradiation of 27 mW / cm2. During the
characterization means, the temperature in an inert
environment for about 25 ℃.
WORKING OF PLASTIC SOLAR CELL:
The solar cell created is actually a hybrid, comprised of tiny
nanorods dispersed in an organic polymer or plastic. A layer
only 200 nanometres thick is sandwiched between electrodes
and can produce at present about 0.7 volts. The electrode layers
and nanorods/polymer layers could be applied in separate coats,
making production fairly easy. And unlike today's
semiconductor-based photovoltaic devices, plastic solar cells
can be manufactured in solution in a beaker without the need
for clean rooms or vacuum chambers.
Plastic solar cell (PSC) structure is the most successful
structure invented, in which a blend of donor and acceptor with
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a bicontinual phase separation can be formed. When the
sunlight getting through the transparent electrode is absorbed
by the semiconducting donor and acceptor materials in the
photoactive layer, exactions (bounded electron–hole pairs) are
formed, and then the exactions diffuse to the interfaces of the
donor/acceptor where the exactions dissociate into electrons on
the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital level of the acceptor
and holes on the highest occupied molecular orbital level of the
donor. The dissociated electrons and holes are driven by build-
in electric field and then moved to negative and positive
electrode, respectively, and then collected by the electrodes to
realize the photon-to-electron conversion. Figure 4 shows the
electronic energy levels of the donor and acceptor in a
P3HT/PCBM blend system.
The absorption band of P3HT/PCBM covers the range from
380 to 670 nm, which means that the photons with energy
between 2.0eV and 3.3 eV can be absorbed by the active layer,
and the exactions will be formed. In order to make better
utilization of the sunlight, active layer materials with broad
absorption band is required, and for this purpose, more and
more low band gap (LBG) materials have been developed and
great successes have been made in the past decade.
.
Fig.5. Electronic energy level of P3HT and PC60BM
Since, the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital and the highest
occupied molecular orbital level of P3HT is higher than that of
PCBM, the exactions will separate into positive and negative
charges at the interface of the P3HT phase and PCBM phase.
The negative charge will transport through the lowest
unoccupied molecular orbital of PCBM and the positive charge
will transport through the highest occupied molecular orbital
level of P3HT, and then the charges can be collected by the
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Paper Title:- Plastic Solar Cell
electrodes. In order to get efficient charge separation, highest
occupied molecular orbital level and lowest unoccupied
molecular orbital of the donor material should be 0.2–0.3 eV
higher than that of the acceptor material, respectively. If the
offset is too small, it would be hard to get efficient charge
separation; if the offset is too big, much energy loss would be
happened. As known, open-circuit voltage (Voc) of BHJ OPV
devices is directly proportional to the gap between highest
occupied molecular orbital level of the donor and lowest
unoccupied molecular orbital of the acceptor. Although, the
energy of the photon that can be utilized by the P3HT/PCBM
system is higher than 2.0 eV, Voc of P3HT/PCBM based OPV
device is typically around 0.6 eV, meaning that more than 70 %
energy loss is taking place during the photoelectric conversion
process. Therefore, to minimize the energy loss, highest
occupied molecular orbital level and lowest unoccupied
molecular orbital levels of the donors and the acceptors should
be tuned carefully.
APPLICATIONS:
 Plastic formulations also open the possibility of printing
solar cells onto various surfaces, much as ink is printed on
a newspaper.
 Lightweight and flexible plastic solar cell painted on the
back of it could power portable electronics equipments like
PDAS, laptops and pocket calculators etc. anywhere we
can access solar energy.
 The new cells also open up possibilities for wearable
computing devices.
 Functions of plastic solar cell similar in visible region are
needed in the infrared region for many imaging
applications in the medical field and for fiber optic
communications.
 Ultra high efficient plastic solar cells are expected to work
well in low-light conditions and under artificial light along
with the increased wavelength region.
 A big attraction of dye-based PVs. is that they can be
colored and even patterned to resemble normal roofing
material or military camouflage. The US military appears
to agree, having already placed orders for PV material as
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part of on-going development programmers with army,
navy, airforce and Marine Corps.
ADVANTAGES:
 They are considered to be 30% more efficient when
compared to conventional solar cells.
 They are more efficient and more practical in application.
 Traditional solar cells are bulky panels. This is very
compact.
 Conventional solar cells are only used for large
applications with big budgets. But the plastic solar cells are
feasible as they can be even sewn into fabric- thus having
vast applications.
 Flexible, roller processed solar cells have the potential to
turn the sun’s power into a clean, green, consistent source
of energy.
LIMITATIONS:
 The biggest problem with this is cost effectiveness. But
that could change with new material. But chemists have
found a way to make cheap plastic solar cells flexible
enough to paint onto any surface and potentially able to
provide electricity for wearable electronics or other low
power devices.
 Relatively shorter life span when continuously exposed to
sunlight.
 Could possibly require higher maintenance and constant
monitoring.
CONCLUSION:
These lightweight prospect flexible polymer solar cells can
produce stimulated interest from research institutions and
companies. Over the past five years there has been
understanding and polymer - a huge increase fullerene bulk
heterojunction solar cell performance. A comprehensive
analysis of listed companies in key parameters in the form of
material, energy level , charge transport , and electrode
materials have been obtained . Plastic solar cells contribute to
the use of infrared radiation from the sun 's rays . Compared to
conventional solar cells when they are more effective. The
main advantage they enjoy is that they can even on cloudy
ISSN:-2349-3585 |www.ijrdt.org
Paper Title:- Plastic Solar Cell

days, which is impossible before the work. They are more

compact and less bulky.

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[4] PLASTIC SOLAR CELLS: IMPLEMENTATION OF
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