University of Warwick spinout Molecular Solar is raising a further £5 million in investment to design and build its own bespoke technology facility to commercialise its technologies for advanced solar cells.
The latest investment plan builds on the company's recent success in gaining venture capital, and in joining a £2.1 million research programme.
Molecular Solar has developed a range of new technologies to exploit organic solar cells for a range of energy saving applications.
The company is working with sustainable materials which offer the prospect of very low cost manufacture of lightweight, flexible cells. Module forms include flexible sheets that could be used for a variety of applications including a solar-powered mobile phone charger that rolls up, micro-lights that can be added to clothing, and a detachable sun-shade for automobile windscreens that powers a small integral fan to circulate air and cool the interior of the car when parked in direct sunlight.
Molecular Solar is participating in a recently announced £2.1 million project being funded by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the other participating companies, including Asylum Research and New World Solar) to develop prototype third generation organic solar cells.
The company also attracted significant venture capital support following the announcement by Molecular Solar researchers that they had developed a gold plated window as the transparent electrode for organic solar cells. The electrodes have the potential to be relatively cheap since the thickness of gold used is very thin.
Dr Mark Payton, Managing Director of Mercia Fund Management which led the company's latest investment round alongside management and private investors, says: 'We see this new venture as the potential leader in the development of third generation organic solar technology making this form of energy provision open to a much broader market place.'
Other UK start-ups commercialising advanced solar cell technologies include Cambridge University spinout Eight19 and Oxford Photovoltaics, which is developing low-cost PV glass based on dye solar cell materials, for the building-integrated PV market.
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