"When you are travelling round the world," said Mazhar Bari, CEO and co-founder of SolarPrint, "you suddenly realize, `Where are the bloody solar panels?`"
That question led Bari, an Irish citizen with Pakistani roots and a physics degree from Cambridge, to explore dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) technology. DSSC is "part printable, part liquid," he said.
Potentially, DSSC could be less expensive than traditional solar cells - and therefore more ubiquitous - if the manufacture and technological nuances could be mastered.
SolarPrint effectively has eliminated the fluid character of DSSC and replaced it with nanomaterials and printing. This way that all of the active elements of SolarPrint's cells, not only part of them, are applied through printing.
"There are many components in the cell. One level is called the electrolyte layer." As a liquid, that level is "terrible," Bari said. The efficiencies are adequate, he said, but "lab time is crap and it cannibalizes the materials in the cell." The SolarPrint process replaces that melted with a printable electrolyte paste made of smart nanomaterials, carbon nanotubes, graphene and ionic salts. "And it`s a fully printable device."
Roy Horgan, Business Development Director and co-founder, argues that this reduces the company's cost to less than a tail of those associated with traditional processes.
That said, dye-sensitized solar cells remain a tricky technology. Others have tested and total up short. Mass manufacturing is not easy. Worse, the cells tend to go down over time. Since consumers buy solar cells to go for 30 years, reliability is a big issue.
Bari, Horgan and their team believe that SolarPrint`s unique way into the market will be through their technology`s ability to get low or diffuse light levels both inside and under overcast, early dawn and late evening outdoor conditions. "Dye solar cells bring really well indoors," Bari said. "The voltage doesn`t drop like crazy (like silicon) and it is capable to produce reasonable power in indoor light - four or 5 times higher than silicon."
The SolarPrint cells are more effective because they are based on a rounded nanotech structure instead of the angular crystalline structure of silicon materials. Electrons excited by light have to hit the crystalline structures "at the proper angle" to get electricity. With the curved surface of a nanostructure, "the tip of concentration is much larger."
"One day, the solid man will be covered in dye solar cells. That`s our vision," said Bari.
These capabilities make the SolarPrint cells ideal for supplying power to the wireless indoor sensors that will progressively make buildings smarter and more efficient. "The benefits of this technology," Bari said, "are quite fascinating."
In essence, the power to power wireless sensors from indoor light makes the SolarPrint technology as often a constituent of the energy efficiency industry as of the solar industry. The reliability of dye cell-powered sensors, uncompromised by the limitations of batteries or capacitors, will provide the sensors to attend a much wider diversity of functions. This will produce higher levels of building efficiency and more energy savings.
SolarPrint's competitors in dye cells include Dyesol, EPFL, G24i, Mitsubishi and Peccell. Other next-generation solar cell developers, including Konarka and Plextronics, are running on organic photovoltaics.
SolarPrint now has a low manufacturing facility in Dublin that is able of making proof-of-concept cells and is set to extend into total production as shortly as funding becomes available. "Our stress is really clear," Bari said. "We need to manufacture, produce, focus on commercial applications and discover new applications. That`s where we can add value."
"The skepticism is in companies` ability to deliver," Horgan added. "If we`ve done something different," he said, "it`s an absolute focus on producing commercial products and materials that can be reproduced at a cost." The SolarPrint process is "fully printable screen printing that can be produced in high volume," Horgan said. "It`s a commercial approach."
"There are far too many chemists in this industry," Bari joked. "What this industry needs is more engineers with an applied approach," he added more seriously. "In the following 5 or ten years, that will change."
Horgan explained that in serving to the company`s preparations to take their intersection to the marketplace, they have collected a grouping of experienced experts from "across the world" that includes "eight PhDs" and they are adding an average of three faculty members every two months.
Like Horgan, Bari emphasized the set of the technology to fall to market. "With technology, you pass an enormous number of dollars to amend it. At some point, you`ve got to say, we now have something that`s reasonably OK, let`s take it to market. In parallel, we continue R&D. We proceed to improve," Bari said. "But at some point you`ve got to get out and put your neck on the air and say `Let`s go for it.`"
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