Proceedings of the International Symposium on

Sustainable Systems and Technologies, v4 (2016)

Life Cycle Assessment of Solid-State Perovskite Solar Cells
Technology
Jingyi Zhang University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, jingyi@uwm.edu
Xianfeng Gao University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, gaox@uwm.edu
Yelin Deng University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, deng5@uwm.edu
Yuanchun Zha University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, yzha@uwm.edu
Chris Yuan University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, cyuan@uwm.edu
Abstract
With the advantages of low cost and high conversion efficiency, perovskite solar cell attracts
enormous attention in recent years for research and development. However, the toxicity
potential of lead used in perovskite solar cell manufacturing causes grave concern for its
environmental performance. To understand and facilitate the sustainable development of
perovskite solar cell, a comprehensive life cycle assessment has been conducted by using
attributional life cycle assessment approach, from cradle to grave. The results indicate that the
major environmental problem is associated with system manufacturing, including gold cathode,
organic solvent usage and recycling, and electricity utilization in component manufacturing
process. However, lead only contributes less than 1% of human toxicity and ecotoxicity
potentials in the whole life cycle, which can be explained by the small amount usage of lead in
perovskite dye preparation. A comparison of perovskite solar cell with conventional solar cells
and other dye sensitized solar cells shows that perovskite solar cell could be a promising
alternative technology for future clean power generations.

Proceedings of the International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technologies (ISSN 2329-9169) is published annually
by the Sustainable Conoscente Network. Jun-Ki Choi and Annick Anctil, co-editors 2016. ISSSTNetwork@gmail.com.
Copyright 2016 by Jingyi Zhang, Xianfeng Gao, Yelin Deng, Yuanchun Zha, Chris Yuan Licensed under CC-BY 3.0.
Cite as:
Title of paper Proc. ISSST, Jingyi Zhang, Xianfeng Gao, Yelin Deng, Yuanchun Zha, Chris Yuan. Doi information v4 (2016)

Title of paper goes here

Introduction
Perovskite solar cells have attracted enormous attention in recent years due to their low cost
and superior technical performance.(Grtzel, 2003; Hagfeldt, Boschloo, Sun, Kloo, & Pettersson,
2010) Perovskite dye shows remarkable optical absorptions over a broader range, enabling
efficient light harvesting in very thin films.(M. M. Lee, Teuscher, Miyasaka, Murakami, & Snaith,
2012) Moreover, they exhibit long charge-carrier diffusion lengths (>1 mm) relative to the
absorption depth of incident light (100 nm),(Stranks, Nayak, Zhang, Stergiopoulos, & Snaith,
2015; Xing et al., 2013) meaning that almost all photoexcited species in the perovskite are able
to reach the charge collection electrodes, and resulting in a superior photovoltaic performance.
In current research, the maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) can reach 20%(Im, Lee,
Lee, Park, & Park, 2011; Jeon et al., 2015; Kojima, Teshima, Shirai, & Miyasaka, 2009) and it
still has potential to be further developed since the theoretical maximum PCE of perovskite solar
cells is about 30%.(Park, 2013)
The research progress has revealed that perovskite solar cells have a promising future in
replacing the expensive Si and CdTe thin-film PV technologies on current commercial
market.(Green, Emery, Hishikawa, Warta, & Dunlop, 2015) However, the use of toxic metals,
such as lead, in the perovskite dye and toxic chemicals in perovskite solar cell manufacturing
causes grave concerns for its environmental performance.(Gratzel, 2014) Espinosa et al.
discussed the toxicity of the solid state perovskite solar cell;(Espinosa, Serrano-Lujn, Urbina, &
Krebs, 2015) Gong et al. analyzed the life cycle environmental impacts of solid state perovskite
solar cell;(Gong, Darling, & You, 2015) and Zhang et al. investigated the environmental aspects
of liquid state perovskite solar cell.(Zhang, Gao, Deng, Li, & Yuan, 2015) However, they have
dissimilar results due to different assumptions made in their studies. Gong et al. claimed that
82.5 and 60.1g CO2 eq. could be released to the environment to generate 1kWh electricity, with
7.78kWh manufacturing energy needed to fabricate 1m2 TiO2 and ZnO solar cells. Espinosa et
al. found about 5.48 and 5.24kg CO2 eq were produced to produce 1kWh electricity, with 0.146
and 0.108kWh of process energy to produce 1m2 solar cell. In addition, Zhang et al. claimed
that 18.7 to 5867g CO2 eq. may emit to the environment based on different insolation,
conversion efficiency and life span, with 128kWh manufacturing energy to fabricate 1m2 solar
cell. To overcome the uncertainties brought from the assumptions, life cycle assessment has
been conducted by combining the information obtained from literature and experiments carried
out in our lab, and it can support sustainable scale-up of the perovskite solar cell technology in
next stage of research and development.
The objective of this study is to conduct a cradle-to-grave LCA of solid perovskite solar cell to
identify potential opportunities for improvement and guide the sustainable development of solid
state perovskite solar cell technology from design to manufacturing. All the manufacturing
process data are estimated from both the article written by Gratzel et al (Burschka et al., 2013)
and the experiment conducted in our lab. The materials and energy which have specific
description from the article are obtained from calculations, while others which do not have
detailed narrative are estimated from the experiments conducted in our lab. This ensures the
reliability and accuracy of the life cycle assessment and also provides qualified results for
further development.

J. Zhang et al.

Life Cycle Assessment

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a systematic approach to evaluate the comprehensive
environmental impacts of a product over its full life cycle. A complete cradle-to-grave LCA of
solid perovskite solar cell was conducted through goal and scope definition, life cycle inventory
(LCI) analysis, life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and interpretation. Material and energy
which have specific description were estimated from the article written by Gratzel et al(Burschka
et al., 2013); meanwhile, others which have not been included in the article, such as the usage
of cleaning solution, have been estimated from the experiments conducted in our lab. The
amount of materials used was calculated by multiplying the concentration (density) and volume.
The energy demand in component manufacturing was estimated as the product of equipment
usage time; power and use factor, which was defined as the area of the manufacturing material
divided by the maximum capacity that the equipment can handle. Other LCI data, such as raw
material extraction and end-of-life, were modeled and retrieved from GaBi 6.1 professional,
ecoInvent databases, and various reports and literature. LCIA was conducted using standard
impact categories and characterization factors built into GaBi 6.1. Subsequently, sensitivity
analysis was carried out to examine the effects of parameters, such as insolation, conversion
efficiencies and life time. Uncertainty analysis was also performed to check the data quality and
robustness of the results. At last, suggestions and recommendations were formulated according
to the obtained results and derived analysis.
Goal and Scope Definition
The LCA system boundary has been confined from cradle to grave, as shown in Figure 1 below.
The life cycle can be divided into five phases: raw material extraction, organic solvent recycling,
component manufacturing, disassembly and disposal. Raw material extraction includes all the
processes that are used to acquire the raw materials. Organic solvent recycling comprises the
process to recycle the organic solvents used to rinse FTO glass and prepared perovskite dye.
Component manufacturing consists of the energy and heat used to manufacture the solar cell
components, such as fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO), compact, mesoporous, perovskite dye,
hole transport material (HTM) and gold layers. Noticeably, the usage phase has been excluded
in the life cycle due to the near zero environmental impacts from this phase.(Jungbluth, Stucki,
Flury, Frischknecht, & Bsser, 2012) Other than the assumption made in usage phase, the solar
cell disassembly is assumed to have the same process as regular batteries(Hawkins, Singh,
Majeau-Bettez, & Strmman, 2013) and landfill is supposed to be the disposal method of
perovskite solar cell.(Gong et al., 2015) Also, the impacts of transportation in this LCA study has
been neglected due to comparison purpose. The functional unit in this study is defined as 1cm2
active area for electricity generation, and it is interchangeable with other functional unit, such as
kWh under specific insolation, performance ratio, conversional efficiency and life span. The
active area ratio which is defined as the active area divided by the area of FTO glass is
assumed to be 60%.(W. J. Lee, Ramasamy, Lee, & Song, 2007) Electricity consumption is
based on the energetic mix of the United States, in which hard coal (40.86%), natural gas
(24.04%), and nuclear power (18.89%) are the major resources for energy generation.

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Figure 1: System boundary of perovskite solar cell

Life Cycle Inventory

The process-based life cycle inventory (LCI) consists of raw material extraction, organic solvent
recycling, component manufacturing, disassembly and landfill. Raw material exaction,
component manufacturing and organic solvent recycling are three main processes of system
manufacturing. The LCI data of system manufacturing were obtained from both the article
written by Gratzel et al(Burschka et al., 2013) and experiments conducted in our lab. Detailed
description of perovskite solar cell manufacturing process can be found in the
literature(Burschka et al., 2013) and the system manufacturing LCI is summarized as below in
Table 1. The foreground data of each component was obtained from various reports and
literatures.(Espinosa et al., 2015; Gong et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2015) The perovskite solar
cell system can be divided into six components: FTO layer, compact layer, mesoporous layer,
perovskite dye layer, HTM layer and Au layer, and they take about 94.6%, 1.4%, 0.4%, 1.2%,
2.4% and 0.01% mass ratio respectively in the system manufacturing.
Table 1. Life cycle inventory of MAPbI3 solid state solar cell
Material
mass (kg)
Material
FTO glass layer
Perovskite dye layer (MAPbI3)
FTO glass
1.25E-03
PbI2
alkaline
2.33E-04
N,N-DMF
DI water
1.00E-02
MAI
ethanol
1.10E-03
2-propanol
acetone
1.11E-03
2-propanol
recycled solvent
1.50E-02
recycled solvent
Energy
ultrasonication
ultraviolet treatment

kWh
1.55E-05
3.22E-04

Output
FTO layer

1.25E-03

Energy
stirring and heating
spin coating
drying
drying

mass (kg)
1.16E-05
2.38E-05
3.98E-06
3.13E-04
1.10E-03
6.76E-03
kWh
8.23E-05
1.00E-03
1.45E-03
1.45E-03

J. Zhang et al.

waste solvent
recycled solvent
TiO2 compact layer
titanium diisopropoxide
bis(acetylacetonate)
2-propanol
ethanol
TiCl4
DI water
DI water

Energy
spin coating
heat
Output
TiO2 compact layer
wastewater

1.24E-02
1.50E-02

Output
MAPbI3 layer
wastewater
recycled solvent

1.55E-05
1.44E-03
6.76E-03

1.87E-05
6.22E-06
1.97E-04
1.52E-04
1.99E-02
1.00E-02

kWh
3.33E-04
1.45E-03

1.87E-05
3.03E-02

HTM layer
spiro-MeOTAD
4-tert-butylpyridine
lithium bis(trifluoromethylsuphonyl)imide
acetonitrile
tris(2-(1H-pyrazol-1-yl)-4-tertbutylpyridine) cobalt (III) bis
(trifluoromethylsulphonyl)imide
acetonitrile
chlorobenzene

1.81E-06
6.62E-07
2.28E-07
3.44E-07
2.18E-07
5.70E-07
2.78E-05

Energy
spin coating

kWh
8.33E-06

Output
HTM layer

3.16E-05

TiO2 mesoporous layer

TiO2 paste
ethanol

5.64E-06
1.97E-05

Au layer
gold

1.16E-07

Energy
spin coating
drying
heating

kWh
3.33E-04
4.83E-05
7.24E-04

Energy
thermally evaporated

kWh
1.67E-02

output
Au layer

1.16E-07

MAPbI3 solar cell

1.32E-03

Output
TiO2 mesoporous layer
wastewater

5.64E-06
1.97E-05

Life Cycle Impact Assessment and Interpretation.

The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) from cradle to grave has been calculated and
characterized with the ILCD (International Reference Life Cycle Data System) method in GaBi
6.1 (Figure 2). The LCIA from different life cycle stages is expressed as patterned bars in Figure
2(a), which includes raw material extraction, organic solvent recycling, component
manufacturing, disassembly and disposal; whereas the environmental impacts of different
components are shown as colored bars in Figure 2(b), which consists of FTO, compact,
mesoporous, perovskite, HTM and Au layers.

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Figure 2: Life cycle environmental impacts of CH3NH3PbI3 (MAPbI3) perovskite solar cells from the cradle to grave:
acidification potential (AP), global warming potential (GWP), freshwater ecotoxicity potential (ETP), freshwater
eutrophication potential (EP), human toxicity potential with cancer effects (HTP), ozone depletion potential (ODP),
respiratory inorganics (RI), photochemical ozone creating potential (POCP), and abiotic depletion potential (ADP).
From the process based LCIA, system manufacturing, which consists of raw material extraction,
organic solvent recycling and component manufacturing, takes more than 90% of the
environmental impacts. Among the three main processes in system manufacturing, they have
different environmental impacts contribution in different environmental categories. Raw material
extraction has the largest contribution in ETP, EP, HTP, ADP and ODP. Gold production is the
main contributor to the first four environmental categories, while organic solvent production is
the main reason for the high value of ODP. Component manufacturing which only consists of
energy and heat used to fabricate each component also has certain amount of contribution in
AP, GWP, RI and POCP. The U.S. electricity mix is the main contributor for these four
categories. Moreover, organic solvent recycling takes certain portion of AP, GWP, RI and POCP
and it can be also explained by the electricity used to recycle the organic solvent.
Among different life cycle stages, raw material extraction has the largest environmental
contribution to ETP, EP, HTP and ADP, and gold is the main factor for the high potentials with
97.1%, 91.7%, 79.2% and 72.9% contribution ratio to the system manufacturing. Gold is a
heavy metal and it has large toxicity potential in the production process. Heavy metals
generated from nature and human activities, especially mining and industrial processes, can be
emitted into underground water, move along water pathways and eventually deposit in the
aquifer or be washed away by runoffs into surface water and end up with soil pollution.(Duruibe,
Ogwuegbu, & Egwurugwu, 2007) When ingested by human beings or animals, the heavy metal
may combine with the protein and enzymes to form stable biotoxic compounds, and this process
can explain the high values in ETP and HTP. Moreover, gold production process has high
freshwater eutrophication potential due to the phosphorous entering into the water system in the
mining process. As reported, phosphorus enters biosphere by weathering or mining and it can
flow into the water system with the runoff.(Carpenter, 2005) Gold mining also has a large
potential in abiotic depletion and this can be explained by the loss of natural element and fossil
energy in the process of gold production.
Apart from gold usage in perovskite solar cell, organic solvent generation and recycling is
another noteworthy factor that drives the overall environmental impacts. The high environmental

J. Zhang et al.

impacts percentage in AP, GWP, RI and POCP is due to the large amount of organic solvents
used to rinse FTO glass and prepared perovskite dye. Even only 1.64kWh of energy is needed
to recycle the organic solvent, 86% recycling ratio has been proposed for organic solvents and
about 21.8g recycled organic solvents are needed to prepare 1cm2 solar cell. Other than organic
solvent recycling, organic solvent production also has certain amount of contribution to the
environment, especially in ozone depletion potential. This can be explained by the nitrogen
oxides and non methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC) generated during the production
process.
Component manufacturing is another noteworthy process in the LCIA results since it contributes
38.8% GWP, 46.0% AP, 42.2% RI and 30.2% POCP. The process consists of heat and U.S.
electricity mix, and electricity generation contributes more than 96% environmental impacts in
the four categories. High GWP, AP, RI and POCP values mainly originate from hard coal
burning activities, which accounts for 40.86% of the electricity mix in the USA, but has the
lowest heating value and efficiency compared with those of heavy fuel oil and natural gas.(Zhu,
Neale, Miedaner, & Frank, 2006) Thermal deposition of gold on the back of the solar cell and
the perovskite dye preparation processes including stirring, heating, spin-coating and drying are
two major sources of electricity usage. For depositing a thin layer of gold onto FTO glass,
evaporation is need in a vacuum circumstance. There is a high energy demand in evaporating
the gold and pumping air out of the equipment. Also, multiple steps have been involved in
perovskite dye preparation and the overall energy requirement is relatively high.
Due to the grave concern of lead toxicity in perovskite dye preparation, the human toxic cancer
effect and ecotoxicity in freshwater have been analyzed inside the perovskite dye layer
preparation process. Electricity production takes about 41.0% and 53.6% of HTP and ETP
respectively; organic solvent recycling occupies 37.8% and 8.0% of HTP and ETP; while
isopropanol contributes about 19.6% and 35.3% of HTP and ETP. The preparation of lead
iodide only takes 0.8% and 1.5% of HTP and ETP and it indicates that the use of lead in the
preparation process should not be a major concern for the toxicity study. When considering the
end-of-life of lead, sanitary landfill is assumed to be the place to treat the lead and further
research is needed to verify the emission generated in this process.
Overall, the environmental impact is highly dependent on gold production, organic solvent
production and recycling, and electricity usage. From the environmental and technical aspects,
the gold layer can be substituted by other metals, such as silver. Through the calculation in
GaBi 6.1, various reduction ratios have been achieved by replacing gold with silver, especially in
the environmental categories which gold has dominant contributions. The detailed information
can be found in the supporting information (SI) table S1. For organic solvent production and
recycling, technology development is the key to reduce the environmental impacts, and more
attention should be paid to the deduction of electricity and material consumption in the
production process. The electricity usage in preparing the solar cell components is another
noteworthy environmental contributor and this can be reduced by the development of
technology, especially thermal evaporation of metals, and substitution of fossil fuel with clean
energy.
Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analysis
Sensitivity analysis is performed by evaluating the life cycle emissions to generate 1 kWh of
electricity. Power generation can be estimated by G=E*I*PR*L*A,(Fthenakis, Kim, & Alsema,
2008) in which G, E, I, PR, L, and A represent the power generated, conversion efficiency,
insolation, performance ratio, lifetime, and active area, respectively. The detailed parameter
information is summarized in Table 2. Sensitivity analysis is conducted based on the changing

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energy conversion efficiency, insolation and life span. Due to the linear relationship between the
power generation and conversion efficiency, insolation and life span, the environmental impacts
to generate 1 kWh electricity is also linearly correlated with these three factors. The sensitivity
analysis results are shown in Figure 3.
Table 2. Sensitivity analysis parameters
Parameters to calculate energy generation
Conversion efficiency (E)
Insolation (I)

Performance ratio (PR)

Lifetime (L)
Active area (A)
GHG emissions (to produce 1kWh electricity)

Assumptions
10%,15%,20%,25%
1000kWh/m2/year (NW Europe)
1700kWh/m2/year (S Europe)
2190kWh/m2/year (Sahara)
1359kWh/m2/year (Michigan, WI)44
2143kWh/m2/year (Arizona)45
0.75
1,5, 15 and 30 years
60% (Lee et al., 200735)
35.5-5828.6g

Figure 3: Sensitivity analysis of environmental impacts: a) sensitivity analysis with changes to insolation (conversion
efficiency of 10%, lifetime of 5 years); b) sensitivity analysis with change to conversion efficiency (insolation of 1860
kWh m-2 per year; life span of 5 years); c) sensitivity analysis with changes to lifetime (conversion efficiency of 10%,
insolation of 1860kWh m-2 per year)
Since perovskite solar cell is still at the early stage of development and the manufacturing
process parameters for large-scale production have not been fully established, the LCA based
laboratory scale experiments will have some uncertainties in the LCA results. The uncertainty is
mainly from two aspects: methodology uncertainty and background data uncertainty.
Methodology uncertainty is mainly associated with the HTP impact category and this is due to
the lack of robust model.(Finnveden et al., 2009) The second source uncertainty is from
background data input. Monte-Carlo analysis is employed here to assess the cumulative effects
of uncertainties from different inputs. In this study, the uncertainty of GWP to produce 1cm2
solar cell is analyzed by changing material and energy inputs by +/-10% and the result is shown
in the SI figure S2. The mean GWP is about 44.4g CO2-eq. and its standard deviation is 5.56%
with a 95% confidence interval, which indicates the final results are reliable within +/-10%
changes of energy and material consumptions.
Benchmarking with other solar cells

J. Zhang et al.

To evaluate the environmental performance of solid state MAPbI3 perovskite solar cell, the
greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, manufacturing energy consumption, and energy payback time
(EPBT: the time required for a renewable energy system to generate the same amount of
energy as that used to produce the system itself) are benchmarked with silicon solar cell, thin
film solar cell and dye sensitized solar cell. The results are shown in Table 3. Apparently, the
GHG emission and EPBT has wider range than other types of solar cells and this is mainly due
to the consideration of the changing parameters, such as insolation, conversion efficiency and
life span. If considering the increase of energy efficiency in large-scale production, perovskite
solar cell is competitive with other types of solar cells and further technology development is
necessary to make this type of solar cell more sustainable.
Table 3. Benchmarking with other solar cells
Types of solar cell
manufacturing energy per m2 (kWh)
mono-Si
794-1459
Multi-Si
750-1431
a-Si
197-553
Cd-Te
219-501
DSSCs
12-280
perovskite solar cell
7.78/128
MAPbI3 perovskite solar cell
239

GHG emissions (g CO2 eq.)

29-45
23-44
18-50
14-35
19-120
18-5867
35.5-5828.6

EPBT
1.7-2.7
1.5-2.6
1.8-5.5
0.75-2.1
0.6-12.6
0.2-55.4
0.6-3.2

Conclusion
Perovskite solar cell has attracted enormous attention due to its low cost and high conversion
efficiency. However, lead used in perovskite dye brought grave concerns on its toxicity potential
to the environment. To facilitate the sustainable development of perovskite solar cell, the life
cycle assessment from cradle to grave has been conducted by using attributional LCA approach.
Our results reveal that the environmental impacts are concentrated on system manufacturing,
such as gold production, solvent production and recycling, and electricity usage, whereas
system disassembly and landfill only take small amount of environmental impacts. The lead
used in perovskite layer has relatively low environmental impact due to the small amount of
material consumption in this step. The LCA results suggest that alternative metal, such as silver,
can be used to substitute the use of gold in the backside of solar cells. Technology development
of solvent production and recycling is another way to reduce the environmental profile. More
renewable and clean energy usage can be also used to relieve the environmental burden
brought by the solar cell system. Compared with commercial available solar cells, perovskite
solar cell has relatively low manufacturing energy consumption and comparable environmental
impacts. Perovskite solar cell will have a bright future in replacing the traditional solar cells in
future.
Acknowledgements. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their
valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the paper.
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Title of paper goes here

Supplementary Information

Life Cycle Assessment of Solid-State Perovskite Solar Cells Technology

Jingyi Zhang University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, jingyi@uwm.edu
Xianfeng Gao University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, gaox@uwm.edu
Yelin Deng University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, deng5@uwm.edu
Yuanchun Zha University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, yzha@uwm.edu
Chris Yuan University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, cyuan@uwm.edu
Table S1: Environmental impacts reduction by substituting gold with silver
Ag based environmental impacts Au based environmental impacts impacts reduction by using Ag
AP
2.82E-04
3.11E-04
10.08%
GWP
4.38E-02
4.59E-02
4.81%
ETP
2.66E-01
3.99E+00
1400.79%
EP
1.07E-05
1.22E-04
1034.73%
HTP
1.79E-09
8.14E-09
355.39%
ODP
5.32E-09
5.60E-09
5.35%
RI
1.41E-05
1.62E-05
14.66%
POCP
1.17E-04
1.43E-04
22.60%
ADP
1.93E-06
6.67E-06
245.23%
mass
9.35E+01
1.01E+02
8.49%
energy
1.17E+00
1.20E+00
2.69%

Figure S1: Uncertainty analysis by Monte-Carlo analysis with 1000 iterations