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					</table><p>Researchers at the University of New South Wales (<a href="https://www.unsw.edu.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UNSW</a>) Sydney have set a world record efficiency for solar cells based on antimony chalcogenide, achieving a certified power conversion efficiency of 10.7%, according to a study published in <em>Nature Energy.</em></p>
<p>The result, independently verified and supported by a laboratory-measured efficiency of 11.02%, marks the highest confirmed performance for the emerging photovoltaic material and its first inclusion in the international Solar Cell Efficiency Tables.</p>
<p>According to the research team, the result is significant not only because it marks an efficiency milestone but also because it identifies the fundamental chemical mechanism that had previously limited the material’s performance.</p>
<p>Antimony chalcogenide solar cells based on the compound Sb₂(S, Se)₃ have been under development for several years, but efficiencies have remained below 10% since 2020 despite multiple fabrication improvements.</p>
<p>The researchers identified that the key bottleneck was an uneven distribution of sulfur and selenium during hydrothermal deposition, a low-temperature manufacturing process used to form the light-absorbing layer.</p>
<p>This non-uniform elemental distribution created an unfavorable gradient in the valence-band maximum across the absorber layer, effectively forming an internal energy barrier.</p>
<p>That barrier impeded the movement of photogenerated charge carriers, increasing recombination losses and reducing the amount of electricity that could be extracted from sunlight.</p>
<p>To address this issue, the UNSW team added a small amount of sodium sulfide to the precursor solution used in the hydrothermal synthesis. This additive stabilized the reaction kinetics, resulting in a more uniform depth-dependent distribution of sulfur and selenium.</p>
<p>The improved chemical uniformity flattened the valence-band maximum gradient and suppressed the formation of deep-level defects in the absorber. The outcome was a measurable improvement in material quality and device performance, culminating in a certified efficiency of 10.7 ± 0.37% by <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CSIRO</a>, one of nine internationally recognized independent photovoltaic measurement centers.</p>
<p>Antimony chalcogenide is attracting attention as a potential top-cell material for tandem solar architectures, where multiple cells are stacked to capture different parts of the solar spectrum. Tandem configurations are widely regarded as the next major step for commercial solar technology, particularly when paired with conventional silicon cells.</p>
<p>The material offers several practical advantages, including the use of abundant, relatively low-cost elements, an inorganic composition that provides greater long-term stability than some emerging alternatives, and a very high light-absorption coefficient. As a result, a layer only about 300 nanometers thick, roughly one-thousandth the thickness of a human hair, is sufficient to absorb sunlight efficiently.</p>
<p>Additional advantages include low-temperature deposition, which reduces manufacturing energy requirements and supports scalable, cost-efficient production. Beyond tandem panels, the researchers highlighted other commercial use cases.</p>
<p>The material’s ultrathin, semi-transparent nature, combined with a high bifacality of 0.86, makes it suitable for applications such as see-through solar windows. A UNSW-linked spinout, Sydney Solar, is already working to scale window-mounted solar “sticker” products using this technology.</p>
<p>The bandgap of antimony chalcogenide also aligns well with indoor lighting spectra, positioning it for indoor photovoltaic applications, including smart badges, e-paper displays, self-powered sensors, and internet-connected devices, where stability and low-light performance are prioritized over maximum efficiency.</p>
<p>The research team stated that further efficiency gains are expected through defect reduction using chemical passivation techniques, with a near-term target of reaching 12% efficiency as remaining material challenges are addressed.</p>
<p>In November 2025, Researchers at UNSW Sydney <a href="https://www.mercomindia.com/singlet-fission-can-enhance-silicon-solar-cell-efficiency" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claimed</a> they had increased the efficiency of solar technology by utilizing the concept of singlet fission, raising the theoretical efficiency limit of silicon cells to approximately 45%.</p>


Antimony Chalcogenide Solar Cell Efficiency Hits a New High of 10.7%


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					</table><p>Around a fifth of the solar panels examined in a news study by the University of New South Wales (<a href="https://www.unsw.edu.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UNSW</a>) were found to fail much faster than expected, with some likely to last for only half of their lifetime.</p>
<p>Researchers identified the reason behind the so-called ‘long tail’ in the probability distribution of the performance data after analyzing information obtained from nearly 11,000 different photovoltaic samples globally.</p>
<p>When the researchers plotted yearly degradation rates from a large global dataset, they observed a long tail of outliers in which systems performed far worse than expected.</p>
<p>According to the report, the typical decline across the dataset is around 0.9% per year, and nearly 20% of all samples perform 1.5 times worse than the average.</p>
<p>For some, the useful life is around 11 years, and they could lose nearly 45% of their output over a 25-year lifespan.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-88986 aligncenter" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/UNSW-1-300x143.png" alt="Researchers Find 20% of Solar Panels Degrade Faster than Expected" width="300" height="143" srcset="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/UNSW-1-300x143.png 300w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/UNSW-1-600x285.png 600w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/UNSW-1.png 602w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></p>
<p>The report attributed the ‘long tail’ bad performers mainly to the cascading effect, which means that one defect triggers other failures. Also, some modules fail early due to manufacturing defects that slip past quality control.</p>
<p>The researchers found that there are interconnected failures, when different types of failures can interact with each other on an individual panel. The domino effect, when issues don’t just add up but multiply, can be seen as making modules degrade faster than expected.</p>
<p>Also, there are minor initial flaws that may not cause problems at first but can lead to severe performance degradation over time.</p>
<p>The researchers added that climate alone doesn’t explain the ‘long tail,’ as degradation patterns persist even when very hot climate regions are excluded.</p>
<p>Shukla Poddar, a co-author of the paper, said: “A subset of the data shows information specifically related to solar modules in very hot climates, which we know causes higher degradation.”</p>
<p>“However, in other climates, when those hot regions are being excluded from the analysis, we see a similar long-tail pattern in the probability distribution of performance degradation rate. This suggests that the issue is consistent regardless of where the panels are operating.”</p>
<p>The researchers added that even if 20% are bad outliers, a utility-scale project has thousands of modules, and the ‘long tail’ becomes a major financial and energy-yield risk.</p>
<p>The report adds that current tests are not enough, as real-world operations involve many interacting features, so the industry needs better testing standards and more real-world data from large farms to reduce these surprise failures.</p>
<p>In 2025, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE <a href="https://www.mercomindia.com/uv-tests-exaggerate-degradation-in-topcon-modules-fraunhofer-ise" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> that ultraviolet tests rate degradation of TOPCon solar modules significantly higher than performance reduction in real-life conditions. The research shows that common UV tests can significantly exaggerate the degradation effect.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, researchers from UNSW and the Chinese solar module manufacturer LONGi <a href="https://www.mercomindia.com/mitigating-chemical-degradation-in-topcon-solar-cells" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> that the rear side of TOPCon cells, particularly the silicon nitride layer, is prone to chemical degradation when exposed to sodium-based salts, leading to a significant loss of open-circuit voltage.</p>


Researchers Find 20% of Solar Panels Degrade Faster than Expected


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					</table><p>Engineers at the University of New South Wales (<a href="https://www.unsw.edu.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UNSW</a>) in Sydney have introduced a novel method to recycle solar panels and efficiently recover valuable materials, particularly silver.</p>
<p>The patented process has been designed to streamline the sorting of component materials, a crucial step in achieving efficient photovoltaic panel (PV) recycling.</p>
<p>UNSW&#8217;s research team calculates that their process could potentially recycle 5-50 million kilograms of silver from cumulative waste by 2050. Tests have indicated the recovery of approximately 0.64 kilograms of silver per ton of PV waste.</p>
<p>Recycling involves integrating conventional methods with a highly abrasive separation system incorporating sieving aids.</p>
<p>The process includes removing large components like the aluminum frame and glass sheets, followed by crushing the panel and separating materials inside the solar cell.</p>
<p>Sieving helps crush solar cells into smaller particles, facilitating the separation of components, including silver.</p>
<p>The entire crushing and sieving process takes roughly 5-15 minutes within a vibrating container which is known to separate 99% of PV materials.</p>
<p>The team found that using stainless steel balls as sieving aids provided optimal results.</p>
<p>After separation, the team employed traditional chemical leaching and precipitation methods to extract pure silica and silver.</p>
<p>Recycling solar panels comprehensively has presented challenges due to their intricate integration of parts like glass, silicon, metals, wiring, and plastic, making separation difficult.</p>
<p>Successfully reusing solar panel components necessitates meticulous separation to prevent contamination with other materials. Manufacturers prioritize high-purity materials for reuse, a goal that has been elusive to achieve.</p>
<p>As a result, a significant portion of solar panels has been at risk of ending up in landfills instead of being repurposed for environmental benefits.</p>
<p>The research team has claimed to unveil a novel approach that ensures an impressive 99% separation efficiency of PV cell particles.</p>
<p>The environmental concerns associated with disposing of solar panels in landfills are significant due to the presence of harmful metals that can pollute soil and water.</p>
<p>According to estimates by the International Renewable Energy Agency (<a href="https://www.irena.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IRENA</a>), global PV waste volume could reach up to eight million tons by 2030 and potentially soar to 78 million tons by 2050 as earlier generations of solar panels reach their end-of-life.</p>
<p>In April, Nanyang Technological University NTU Singapore <a href="https://www.mercomindia.com/researchers-use-biomass-to-recover-metals-from-battery-waste" target="_blank" rel="noopener">partnered</a> with Se-cure Waste Management (SWM), a Singapore-based battery recycling and processing firm, to recycle spent lithium-ion batteries using biomass.</p>
<p>Recently, researchers from Helmholtz Institute Ulm (HIU) and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) <a href="https://cms.mercomindia.com/innovative-70-of-lithium-from-spent-batteries/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">devised</a> a low-cost and eco-friendly lithium recycling technique to recover up to 70% of lithium from battery waste without the use of harsh chemicals, high temperatures, or pre-sorting of materials.</p>


Sustainable Recycling Technique Recovers Silver from Expired Solar Panels

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