A joint research team led by Professor Li Jiashuo from the Blue-Green Development Institute at Shandong University and Professor Feng Gao from Linköping University, Sweden, has achieved breakthroughs in the sustainability evaluation of perovskite light-emitting diode (PeLED) technologies. Their findings, published in Nature Sustainability under the title “Towards sustainable perovskite light-emitting diodes,” reveal critical insights for guiding the future commercialization of PeLEDs. Ma Xiaotian from Shandong University and Zhang Muyi from Linköping University served as co-first authors, with Professors Li and Feng as co-corresponding authors.
PeLEDs are poised to revolutionize next-generation lighting and display technologies. Despite rapid advancements, the reliance on lead in high-performance devices has raised concerns about health risks from potential leakage. Additionally, challenges such as low stability and high costs threaten to constrain their scalability and adoption. Existing gaps in holistic sustainability frameworks—encompassing environmental, economic, and technical dimensions—have hindered the development of targeted optimization strategies. This study systematically evaluated the environmental and economic performance of 18 representative PeLED technologies, identifying key leverage points to inform technology upgrades and support lifecycle-based commercialization pathways.
The research found that PeLEDs exhibit environmental advantages comparable to mature OLED technologies, contradicting industry assumptions about lead toxicity. Unlike other heavy metals or organic solvents, lead in perovskites does not dominate PeLED toxicity due to the nanoscale thickness of the emissive layer (tens of nanometers) compared to macroscopic functional layers. Red, green, blue (RGB), and white PeLEDs demonstrated similar environmental footprints, whereas near-infrared (NIR) variants incurred significantly higher impacts, primarily driven by gold electrodes. Substituting gold with less impactful metals (e.g., aluminum, copper, or nickel) could align NIR PeLEDs’ environmental performance with RGB counterparts.
To enable sustainable industrial-scale production, the study proposed measures such as recycling organic solvents, reclaiming glass substrates, and scaling up deposition techniques to further reduce environmental burdens. These upgrades could position industrial PeLEDs among the most eco-friendly lighting and display technologies, matching OLEDs’ sustainability benchmarks. Additionally, the team introduced a novel metric—the relative impact mitigation time—which indicates that a PeLED lifespan of approximately 10,000 hours effectively offsets production-related environmental impacts. Techno-economic analyses suggested that large-scale manufacturing and recycling strategies could drive PeLED costs below $100 per square meter, aligning with commercial OLED panel pricing. Future cost reductions should prioritize optimizing charge-transport materials, a major contributor to current expenses.
This work establishes a foundational framework for advancing PeLED sustainability, offering actionable insights for researchers, policymakers, and industry stakeholders seeking to balance performance, cost, and environmental stewardship in emerging display technologies.
