Environmental risks and strategies for long-term stability of carbon-based perovskite solar cells

Abstract The decent power conversion efficiency (∼20%), ultra-low cost and one-year stability make carbon-based perovskite solar cells (C-PSCs) one of the most promising candidates for commercialization in the field of perovskite photovoltaics. However, the stability of C-PSCs still lags behind that of the commercialized silicon and thin-film photovoltaics. Although there have been many reviews of the long-term stability of perovskite solar cells (PSCs), none has specifically focused on the long-term stability of C-PSCs. Herein, we summarize the environmental risks and strategies for ensuring the long-term stability of C-PSCs, highlighting also the various contributions of our research group. The most important factors affecting long-term stability are analyzed according to the environmental risks (i.e. moisture, oxygen, light, and thermal stress) of device degradation. The proposed strategies chiefly center around improving the intrinsic stability and strengthening encapsulation. In our conclusions, we also present an outlook on future work concerning stability improvement and commercial development of C-PSCs. Our work provides a clear guideline for future research on C-PSCs.