Encapsulation and Outdoor Testing of Perovskite Solar Cells: Comparing Industrially Relevant Process with a Simplified Lab Procedure

• We compare both approaches and evaluate their effectiveness to impede humidity ingress under three different testing conditions: on-shelf storage at 21 °C and 30% relative humidity (RH) (ISOS-D1), damp heat exposure at 85 °C and 85% RH (ISOS-D3), and outdoor operational stability continuously monitoring device performance for 10 months under maximum power point tracking on a roof-top test site in Berlin, Germany (ISOS-O3). LAB encapsulation of perovskite devices consists of glue and a cover glass and can be performed at ambient temperature, in an inert environment without the need for complex equipment.
• This glue-based encapsulation procedure allowed PSCs to retain more than 93% of their conversion efficiency after 1566 h of storage in ambient atmosphere and, therefore, is sufficient and suitable as an interim encapsulation for cell transport or short-term experiments outside an inert atmosphere.
• However, this simple encapsulation does not pass the IEC 61215 damp heat test and hence results in a high probability of fast degradation of the cells under outdoor conditions.
• The COM encapsulation procedure requires the use of a vacuum laminator and the cells to be able to withstand a short period of air exposure and at least 20 min at elevated temperatures (in our case, 150 °C).
• This encapsulation method enabled the cells to pass the IEC 61215 damp heat test and even to retain over 95% of their initial efficiency after 1566 h in a damp heat chamber.
• Above all, passing the damp heat test for COM-encapsulated devices translates to devices fully retaining their initial efficiency for the full duration of the outdoor test (>10 months).
• To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the longest outdoor stability demonstrations for PSCs published to date.
• We stress that both encapsulation approaches described in this work are useful for the scientific community as they fulfill different purposes:  Gentaur WiFi Datalogging High-Temperature Monitoring the COM for the realization of prototypes for long-term real-condition validation and, ultimately, commercialization of perovskite solar cells and the LAB procedure to enable testing and carrying out experiments on perovskite solar cells under noninert conditions.

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