[nanoPost] Nanostructures and nanomaterials for solar cell applications

Company USA

The company is developing solutions for the rapidly expanding global solar energy market expected to exceed $18 Billion by 2010. The company has proprietary and patented approaches for dramatically lowering the cost of solar panels and improving the efficiency of photovoltaics.

The company's proven and validated process for recharging of low manufacturing cost dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) eliminates the existing lifetime limitations of these photovoltaics, allowing them to function beyond the lifetime of current silicon technology. When combined with government subsidies, these solar cells will cost the consumer less than $3,000 with a five year payback period. This is in comparison to current silicon technology which requires cash outlays of $12,000 or more with payback periods in excess of twelve years in most US residential markets.

Furthermore, the company’s non-toxic materials based process for recharging DSSCs allows for future improvements in the installed base of solar cells through recharging with newly developed, higher-efficiency dyes. This technology represents the world’s first and only rechargeable photovoltaic with the capability for post-installation upgrades.

The company has succeeded in creating several scalable synthetic routes for the production of its nano materials for integrated device studies. They have successfully made core-shell structures for collaborative work at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology where dye-sensitized solar cells were discovered and pioneered. Recent advances have shown nearly an order of magnitude enhancement of absorption in thin film solar cell materials.

The company' patent portfolio consists of seven issued patents and sixteen pending patent applications covering specific uses of nano-antennas, materials synthesis and surface modifications.

To date, the company has succeeded in creating several high-volume, scalable, synthetic routes for the production of materials for testing in the specific applications discussed. They have successfully made core-shell structures for collaborative testing in solar cell applications at the Swiss Federal Institute where dye-sensitized solar cells were discovered and pioneered using conventional materials.

In addition, the company have also produced a number of nanomaterials for further surface modification and eventual use in vision and liquid crystal display applications. Efforts have also focused on the engineering of the enhancement effect through a series of key experiments, which when complete, will allow us to optimize the effect for the specific applications and begin the second phase of development where the materials will be characterized in terms of their enhanced light harvesting capabilities through collaborative relationships with institutional and corporate partners.

applications

Solar energy
Since the oil crisis of the 1970's there has been a concerted effort to replace our dependence on electricity from fossil fuel power plants to solar power generation. Today, the market for photovoltaic devices has grown to $5 billion and is growing at 35% annually. Furthermore, one-third of the world-population has no access to a power grid and could greatly benefit from local energy production harnessing the sun's power, which in one hour delivers enough energy to the earth to power all the world's energy needs for one year.

The movement to replace the traditional sources of energy for the power grid with non-polluting renewable energy has only just begun. Today, solar energy installations account for less than 0.01% of total global primary energy demand. The major reason for this small penetration is cost.

Dye-sensitized electrochemical photovoltaic cells, also known as Graetzel Cells, offer significantly lower manufacturing costs because of their simplicity and use of low-cost active materials such as TiO2.

The company has demonstrated a completely rechargeable dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC or Graetzel Cell) creating the lowest manufacturing cost, long-life photovoltaic system in the world. DSSCs which are based on low cost materials and simple construction, have to date suffered from limited operating lifetimes due to the degradation of the sensitizer dyes.

The companys’ nontoxic chemical process allows the degraded dye in already installed DSSCs to be removed and replaced with new dye, restoring the performance of the original solar cell.

The materials can boost the absorption of sensitizing dyes by several orders of magnitude; potentially making Graetzel cells more efficient than silicon at drastically reduced manufacturing costs.

displays
Liquid crystal (LC) displays have experienced tremendous market adoption over the last ten years. Driving this market growth are the advantages of cost, power consumption and size that LC displays provide over traditional cathode-ray-tube (CRT) based displays. The LC display market has also grown horizontally encompassing displays for televisions, cellular handsets, cameras, PDA's, medical equipment, automotive and aviation applications. Despite this market success, performance limitations remain in LC technology, specifically in limited viewing angles and brightness.

The company is pursuing the development and eventual large-scale manufacturing of anisotropic metallic nanostructures specifically engineered for display applications. These rod structures, or nanorods, are easily incorporated into liquid crystals to dramatically improve display performance in viewing angle, brightness and power consumption. The doped LC material would be light-stable and could be a direct substitute for the current LC materials without any manufacturing process changes or capital expenditure requirements for the display manufacturer.

vision

The recent success in demonstrating nearly an order of magnitude increase in the absorption of light by solar cell dyes in proximity to nano-antennas suggests that photo-biological processes such as vision and photosynthesis could also be enhanced. The company has developed intellectual property around this concept, specifically on the use of biologically inert gold nanostructures. Gold is well suited for the enhancement of visual acuity as its response is in the center of the visible spectrum and a significant body of work on attaching it to antibodies, proteins, and other biological macromolecules already exists.

The company is actively seeking external collaborations to develop biologically active metallic nanostructures which can selectively bind within nanometers of healthy photoreceptors to dramatically enhance their light harvesting capability. By increasing the sensitivity of photoreceptors, we hope to improve visual acuity for those people affected by retinal diseases such as Age-related Macular Degeneration and Diabetic Retinopathy, which, together, affect over 36 million people globally.