- Dr. Yenal Yalcinkaya
Postdoc
E-Mail: mehmet.yalcinkaya@...
Phone: 5406
Room: P946
Research Interests
Integrated Development of Sustainable Solvent Strategies for Perovskite Solar Cell
Perovskite solar cells (PSC) have emerged in the past decade as an exciting, low-cost, renewable-energy technology, and the efficiency with which they convert sunlight to electricity is now on par with silicon solar cells. However, the health and environmental impacts of the solvents involved in PSC processing remain a barrier for commercialization and large-scale production. The solvents, some of which are very hazardous, may be released into the atmosphere causing environmental and health impacts, condensed for energy recovery via incineration, which produces carbon emissions, or distilled for solvent recovery, which requires additional infrastructure and energy input.
This project will focus on sustainable chemistry and engineering of PSCs via green-solvent and solvent-free approaches. Notably, this project will take an integrated, multidisciplinary approach that considers all key components of a PSC; the light-absorbing perovskite layer, charge-transport layers, and performance-enhancing additives. A novel in-situ transmission characterization technique will be used to provide fundamental insight into the formation of the PSC layers with green solvents. The manufacturing processes will be studied and optimized to minimize harmful solvents and exhaust, and the performance of the PSCs will be studied and collaboratively optimized by the Canadian and German teams to achieve sustainable PSC manufacturing.
Curriculum vitae
2024 –
Postdoc at the University Konstanz, Prof. Schmidt-Mende’s group.
2020 – 2024
Ph.D. in Chemistry with Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research at the Johannes Gutenberg University Main. Supervisor: Prof. Stefan Weber’s group.
Topic: Investigation of Sub-granular Dynamics in Halide Perovskites via Atomic Force Microscopy.
2018 – 2020
Researcher in Materials Science and Engineerin at the Izmir Institute of Technology.
Topic: Inorganic halide perovskite nanocrystals for light-emitting diodes.
2015 – 2018
M.Sc. in Materials Science and Engineerin at the Gebze Technical University. Supervisor: Prof. Koray Oztur.
Topic: Fabrication of TiO2 nanostructures for photocatalysis.