- Title
- Towards production scale-up of organic photovoltaics
- Creator
- Mulligan, Cara J.
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2013
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Organic photovoltaics (OPVs), made from layers of conducting polymers and organic materials are a recent technology that can be manufactured using reel-to-reel deposition processes. OPVs have gained much attention as a potential low cost power source, however the technology has not yet been successfully commercialised. This thesis addresses both the technical and economic aspects of OPV production scale-up by examining large-area module fabrication processes and their associated costs. A novel draw-bar coating technique was firstly examined as a controllable method of producing consistent thin films for large-area module fabrication. The coating technique was discovered to behave differently to other meniscus-based methods, leading to the development of a new empirical model to describe the coating behaviour and predict the deposited film thickness. The draw-bar method was then used to fabricate large-area OPV devices, producing large-area flexible chloroform-based devices comparable to similar devices produced using other techniques. Significantly, large-area flexible water-based devices were also produced. Trials using a variety of substrates showed that the substrate properties dictated the minimum film thickness and influenced the device response to annealing treatments, revealing important considerations for large-scale production processes. The thesis also presents the first economic model for the large-scale manufacture of OPV modules, which incorporates bulk scale production costs of all the component materials. The model quantifies the likely benefits of future work towards scaling-up polymer and fullerene production, developing techniques with moderate production speeds, and using indium tin oxide replacements. Improved levelised cost of electricity estimates for OPV were then determined by integrating OPV-specific measured and calculated data, and the impact of physical and financial variables as well as different module designs was investigated. The findings of this thesis can be used to direct further research and development on the pathway to full-scale manufacturing.
- Subject
- organic photovoltaics; large scale production; large scale manufacture; economic model
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1041150
- Identifier
- uon:13866
- Rights
- Copyright 2013 Cara J. Mulligan
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
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| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Abstract | 205 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Thesis | 50 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |