PUBLICATION
Ecotoxicological assessment of solar cell leachates: Copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) cells show higher activity than organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells
- Authors
- Brun, N.R., Wehrli, B., Fent, K.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-151130-1
- Date
- 2016
- Source
- The Science of the total environment 543: 703-714 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Keywords
- Gene expression, Photovoltaic, Risk assessment, YES, Zebrafish embryo
- MeSH Terms
-
- Acid Rain
- Copper/toxicity*
- Ecotoxicology
- Gallium/toxicity*
- Indium/toxicity*
- Models, Chemical*
- Risk Assessment
- Seawater
- Selenium/toxicity*
- Solar Energy*
- Toxicity Tests
- PubMed
- 26615488 Full text @ Sci. Total Environ.
Citation
Brun, N.R., Wehrli, B., Fent, K. (2016) Ecotoxicological assessment of solar cell leachates: Copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) cells show higher activity than organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells. The Science of the total environment. 543:703-714.
Abstract
Despite the increasing use of photovoltaics their potential environmental risks are poorly understood. Here, we compared ecotoxicological effects of two thin-film photovoltaics: established copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) and organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells. Leachates were produced by exposing photovoltaics to UV light, physical damage, and exposure to environmentally relevant model waters, representing mesotrophic lake water, acidic rain, and seawater. CIGS cell leachates contained 583μgL(-1) molybdenum at lake water, whereas at acidic rain and seawater conditions, iron, copper, zinc, molybdenum, cadmium, silver, and tin were present up to 7219μgL(-1). From OPV, copper (14μgL(-1)), zinc (87μgL(-1)) and silver (78μgL(-1)) leached. Zebrafish embryos were exposed until 120h post-fertilization to these extracts. CIGS leachates produced under acidic rain, as well as CIGS and OPV leachates produced under seawater conditions resulted in a marked hatching delay and increase in heart edema. Depending on model water and solar cell, transcriptional alterations occurred in genes involved in oxidative stress (cat), hormonal activity (vtg1, ar), metallothionein (mt2), ER stress (bip, chop), and apoptosis (casp9). The effects were dependent on the concentrations of cationic metals in leachates. Addition of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid protected zebrafish embryos from morphological and molecular effects. Our study suggests that metals leaching from damaged CIGS cells, may pose a potential environmental risk.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping