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Semi-transparent Organic Solar Cells for Greenhouse Application
Yuan Xiong1*, Eshwar Ravishankar2, Jennifer Swift3, Harald Ade1*, Ronald Booth2, Melodi Charles4, Reece Henry1, Brendan O’Connor2, Jeromy James Rech5, Carole Saravitz3, Heike Sederoff4, Long Ye1, Wei You5
1. Department of Physics, Organic and Carbon Electronics Lab (ORaCEL), North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
2. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and ORaCEL, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
3. Department of Plant Biology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
4. Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
5. Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
E-mail: yxiong8@ncsu.edu; hwade@ncsu.edu
Semitransparent organic solar cells (ST-OSCs) show great potential in building-integrated photovoltaics due to the advantages in solution processability, flexibility, and transparency. Herein, we present a systematic study on the application of high-performance ST-OSC filters in a greenhouse by utilizing three representative systems with different spectral responses, namely, FTAZ:PC71BM[1], FTAZ:IT-M[2, 3], and PTB7-Th:IEICO-4F[4]. Specifically, the cultivation of red leaf lettuce is conducted in a controlled environment growth chamber, which is possible to duplicate any climate, and under different ST-OSC filters. In principle, the ST-OSCs absorb a portion of the solar spectrum for power generation and lettuce utilizes the penetrated light for photosynthesis. Furthermore, we quantitatively investigate the leaf area and number profiles, plant biomass, and photosynthetic rate under the as-prepared ST-OSC filters treatments. On the base of statistical analysis after the growth cycle, we can identify the best ST-OSC for plant growth. These results thus pave the way to integrate ST-OSCs with greenhouses.
[1] S. C. Price, A. C. Stuart, L. Yang, H. Zhou, W. You, Journal of the American Chemical Society 2011, 133, 4625.
[2] L. Ye, Y. Xiong, Q. Zhang, S. Li, C. Wang, Z. Jiang, J. Hou, W. You, H. Ade, Advanced Materials 2018, 30, 1705485.
[3] Y. Xiong, L. Ye, A. Gadisa, Q. Zhang, J. J. Rech, W. You, H. Ade, Advanced Functional Materials 2019, 29, 1806262.
[4] X. Song, N. Gasparini, L. Ye, H. Yao, J. Hou, H. Ade, D. Baran, ACS Energy Letters 2018, 3, 669.
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