Professor Yabing Qi Publishes in Nature Energy: Mitigating Lead Toxicity to Pave the Way for Green Perovskite Solar Cells
On April 24, 2026, Professor Yabing Qi from Global Institute of Future Technology and Zhangjiang Institute for Advanced Study, SJTU, along with collaborators from the Beijing Institute of Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Cornell University, published a review article in Nature Energy. The article titled "Mitigating lead toxicity towards safe commercialization of perovskite solar cells" provides systematic solutions and technical roadmaps towards the safer and more sustainable commercialization of perovskite solar cells.
Currently, lead halide perovskites represent the mainstream technology in perovskite photovoltaics. Based on a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 20% and an absorber layer thickness of 500 nm, an estimated 3.5 tons of lead are required for every gigawatt (GW) of new installed capacity. However, the presence of lead raises environmental and health concerns, posing a barrier to commercialization. Therefore, a systematic assessment of the potential impact of lead in perovskite photovoltaics is of critical importance. This review begins with a quantitative analysis of lead hazards within the perovskite photovoltaic system. It then thoroughly examines the economic costs and environmental benefits of lead management through life-cycle assessment (LCA). The researchers further constructed a model simulating the water-induced lead decomposition from devices into the external environment, incorporating variables such as extreme weather conditions to refine the simulation and assess the risk of lead leakage more accurately and comprehensively.
Figure 1: Lead toxicity of PSCs
Based on current research, the article proposes three feasible technical pathways:
1.Intrinsic Material Replacement: Advancing the development of lead-free or lead-reduced perovskite photovoltaic technologies to fundamentally eliminate or reduce the lead toxicity issue.
2.Suppression of Pb2+ leakage in lead-based perovskites: The lead leakage prevention mechanisms can be conducted from two dimensions. The first one involves incorporating functional additives and interfacial modifiers to enhance the environmental stability of the perovskite layer and inhibit moisture-induced degradation, thereby blocking the primary pathway for lead migration. The second one involves adding adsorbing materials capable of forming stable coordination structures with Pb²⁺ ions, achieving the in-situ complexation and sequestration of potentially released free lead for harmless treatment.
3.Lead Resource Recycling: Establishing a closed-loop material flow system. In the short term, the priority should lie in recycling lead from sources such as retired lead-acid batteries. The long-term goal involves establishing a dedicated lead-recovery system for spent perovskite modules, reclaiming lead from used devices to reduce the pressure from lead mining and environmental emissions at a macro level.
Figure 2: Lead recycling pathways
The article also points out several bottlenecks in these technical roadmaps:
1.The overall technological maturity is limited. Lead-free and lead-reduced perovskite solar cells significantly lag behind their lead-based counterparts in both power conversion efficiency and long-term operational stability.
2.Process scale-up remains a critical challenge. Current research on interfacial engineering and bulk modification of perovskite solar cells is largely confined to small-area devices at the laboratory scale. The reproducibility, uniformity control, and compatibility of these processes for large-area fabrication still require evaluation.
3.The recycling infrastructure is absent. Current research on lead recovery from perovskite solar cells remains mostly at the initial, proof-of-concept stage, lacking systematic validation at the industrial chain level.
4.Standardized system-level and policy measures are missing. At the policy and regulatory level, there is a global absence of clear, unified, quantitative evaluation standards and emission threshold systems for potential lead leakage from perovskite photovoltaic devices.
In conclusion, the paper emphasizes that the life-cycle assessment methodology can build a standardized and quantifiable evaluation system to provide data support for the full-process monitoring and management of lead in perovskite photovoltaics. This promotes the formation of a data-driven, traceable, and verifiable closed-loop management system.
The first author of the paper is Dr. Dongxu Lin from Beijing Institute of Technology, and the second author is Yuanfang Huang, a 2025 doctoral degree student at Global Institute of Future Technology, SJTU. Professor Yabing Qi of Global Institute of Future Technology / Zhangjiang Institute for Advanced Study at SJTU and Professor Yan Jiang of Beijing Institute of Technology are the co-corresponding authors. This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Global Institute of Future Technology / Zhangjiang Institute for Advanced Study, SJTU, and Key Laboratory of Intelligent Creation for Extreme Energy Materials, Ministry of Education.
The review article can be accessed using the link below:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-026-02037-2
Professor Profile
Yabing Qi
Yabing Qi is a Distinguished Professor at Global Institute of Future Technology / Zhangjiang Institute of Advanced Study in Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and a Foreign Fellow of the Engineering Academy of Japan. Prof. Qi obtained his B.Sc., M.Phil., and his Ph.D. degrees from Nanjing University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and University of California Berkeley, respectively. From 2008 to 2011, he conducted postdoctoral research at Princeton University. From 2011 to 2024, he was a faculty member at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Japan, where he had an early promotion to tenured Full Professor, leading the Energy Materials and Surface Sciences Unit as Unit Head. In 2024, Prof. Qi joined Shanghai Jiao Tong University as a full-time Distinguished Professor.
Over the past two decades, Prof. Qi has made outstanding contributions to surface science and energy materials. In 2022, he received the Kao Science Award from the Kao Foundation for Arts and Sciences in Japan. In 2023, he received the JSPS Prize. In 2024, he was elected as a Foreign Fellow of the Engineering Academy of Japan.
As a distinguished scholar in the fields of surface sciences and energy materials, Prof. Qi has published over 200 SCI-indexed papers in internationally renowned academic journals. He has an H-index of 91 and total citations exceeding 30,000. Since 2021, he has been selected as a Clarivate "Highly Cited Researcher" for five consecutively years. He is also a Fellow of the Materials Research Society (MRS Fellow), a Fellow of the American Vacuum Society (AVS Fellow), and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC).
Prof. Qi's research spans multiple disciplines including materials science, physics, chemistry, and electrical engineering. He plans to establish an internationally competitive multidisciplinary research center for surface sciences and advanced materials at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, applying fundamental surface science research to the development of energy and functional materials and devices, such as solar cells, lithium-ion batteries, organic electronic devices and light emitting materials, providing crucial technical support for the future development of energy technologies.
