CIRCULAR-PV: New project advances long-lived and recyclable perovskite photovoltaics as a pivotal part of the Energy Transition

A new partnership that brings together four countries, Cyprus, Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden has been launched for the implementation of a new project with the acronym «CIRCULAR-PV» and titled «Towards long-lived and recyclable perovskite photovoltaics». The Coordinator is the DegradationLab, a strategic infrastructure unit of the PV Technology Laboratory, which is an integral part of the FOSS Research Centre for Sustainable Energy and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Cyprus.

The “CIRCULAR-PV” project has been selected for funding by the Clean Energy Transition Partnership, in the context of the second joint call, under the Transition Initiative 2 – Power Technologies. The total project funding is €2.086.628,06 and the funding for the University of Cyprus is €445.660. The project consortium comprises the University of Cyprus (UCY) and other internationally-leading research institutions, namely, the University of Freiburg, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Solaronix, and Dyenamo AB.

The project focuses on perovskite-based solar PV, in particular metal-halide perovskites, which are a combination of organic and inorganic materials that have shown potential for high performance and low production costs. Key activities will include the development of the appropriate circularity strategy, which will be the groundwork for the perovskite module manufacturing, the module aging, and the perovskite module recycling. Moreover, the feasibility for re-manufacturing eco-friendly perovskite modules of similar efficiency to ‘virgin’ modules using recycled material with different degrees and pathways of degradation will also be investigated.

In the context of this project:

i) The University of Cyprus will be involved in the indoor/outdoor aging tests of the developed eco-design perovskite-based devices and in the indoor characterisation of the modules before/after outdoor testing using advanced optoelectronic techniques.
ii) The University of Freiburg will focus on the fabrication of encapsulated eco-designed perovskite sub-modules, as well as their stability testing indoors and outdoors and detailed characterisation revealing limiting factors and enabling device optimisation.
iii) Forschungszentrum Jülich’s role will be mainly in development of the appropriate circularity strategy, the life-cycle analysis (LCA), the eco-module design, and the recycling efforts.
iv) Solaronix will focus on encapsulated eco-design module manufacturing as well as indoor stability testing and characterisation.
v) Dyenamo’s role will be mainly for innovative material development and supply to the manufacturing partners, and for studies in recovered material from degraded perovskite-based modules.

“CIRCULAR-PV” is expected to lead to the minimisation of the use of critical raw materials and to new circularity-by-design approaches, to the demonstration of the feasibility of scaling up perovskites using sustainable green approaches, circularity designs, and pre-industrial processes, as well as to the demonstration of the technology in different weather conditions in Cyprus and Germany (in terms of stability and circularity effectiveness).

The official launch date of “CIRCULAR-PV” was 1 January 2025 and the project is scheduled to run for 36 months. The kick-off meeting was held online on 20 and 24 January 2025.

For more information, you may contact the Project Coordinator, Dr. Maria Hadjipanayi (tel.: +357 22892287, email: hadjipanayi.maria@ucy.ac.cy), or Professor George E. Georghiou (tel.: +357 22892272, email: geg@ucy.ac.cy).

CIRCULAR-PV is funded by the CETPartnership, under the Joint Call 2023. The CETPartnership’ s research projects are co-funded by the European Commission (Grant Agreement No. 101069750) and the national funding organizations listed on the CETPartnership website. The project is also co-funded by the EU within the framework of the Cohesion Policy Programme “THALIA 2021-2027, through the Research & Innovation Foundation (EP/CETP/0923/0009).