Inhibition of Amine–Water Proton Exchange Stabilizes Perovskite Ink for Scalable Solar Cell Fabrication

• Published in: Chemistry of materials Vol. 34; no. 10; pp. 4394 - 4402
• Main Authors: Moloney, Erin G., Thrithamarassery Gangadharan, Deepak, Yeddu, Vishal, Zhang, Dongyang, Moradi, Shahram, Askar, Abdelrahman M., Adachi, Michael M., Leitch, David C., Saidaminov, Makhsud I.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 24.05.2022
• ISSN: 0897-4756; 1520-5002
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.1c04438

Ambient air processing is desirable for the industrial fabrication of perovskite solar cells. Here, we show that perovskite ink containing methylammonium and formamidinium in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone and N,N-dimethylformamide, a cosolvent composition that satisfies prerequisites for upscaling solar cell fabrication, degrades within a day in ambient air. From 1H NMR spectroscopic analysis, we find that water proton exchange with methylammonium and formamidinium facilitates the aminolysis of formamidinium by methylamine. The addition of elemental sulfur inhibits this proton exchange process via sulfur–amine reactions, resulting in a stable perovskite ink with an extrapolated half-life of 6300 h. The control ink aged for 1 day does not form perovskite films for solar cell fabrication, while the sulfur-stabilized ink is reproducibly used to make devices with efficiencies >15% when aged for over 1 month. The stabilized ink is suitable for upscaling perovskite solar cell fabrication, with efficiencies up to 17% for blade-coated devices.