Final video interview – Lia De Simon for TNO

Lia De Simon is an LCA specialist within TNO.

Below is a statement from her about the European project:

“The role of TNO within the project was to carry out a human health risk assessment and Life cycle assessment of three PeroCUBE devices, to see whether there are substances emitted during the lifecycle of the devices that can cause harm to human health or the environment.
We started with a qualitative assessment using the LICARA innovation scan. This tool screens developing technologies and assesses their expected benefits against potential risks associated with the innovation.
As a second step we performed the Hot Spot scan, to calculate the potential emissions of substances arising during a production process. The Hot Spot Scan an the LICARA scan are available online for free.
Then we performed the Human health risk assessment. In the Human health risk assessment, the “Characterization factor” of the substances emitted is calculated. This is a number that expresses the potential toxicity impacts of the substance considered on human health. Perovskites are not “standard” substances, therefore their characterization factors had to be calculated based on the physical and chemical properties of the substances released, which required a significant amount of effort.
The final step was the LCA. This this brought together all the previous efforts, which allowed us to make an LCA very specific for the perovskite based devices that we were studying. We could include the impact on worker exposure as well that are non-standard in an LCA.
The results show that the perovskite solar cells have a very promising potential, with comparable or lower environmental impacts to other existing technologies, such as CIGS. Still the perovskite devices have to considerably extend their operational lifetime in order to become comparable with the commercial alternatives. The emissions during the use would have a major contribution to human health toxicity. A fail safe encapsulation of these materials is therefore crucial. Also open air storage during EoL has to be avoided for these materials.
This project offered several interesting learning points also for HHRA and LCA practitioners, specifically how LCA and HHRA can be complementary tools that strengthen each other. I think it is really valuable to keep exploring the interface between the two methods and make it smoother so that this kind of combined assessment could become more routine in the future.”