Stepping up dye solar cell production

Toby Meyer - 09 Dec 2010

Screen printing and materials scale-up are preparing dye-sensitised solar cells for commercial applications, says Solaronix CEO Toby Meyer.

Dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSCs) are emerging as a promising type of photovoltaic (PV) technology owing to their ease of fabrication, as printing techniques can be used to deposit the layers of the cell's structure. Lab-produced dye cells are now achieving good efficiencies - the amount of light captured by the cell that is converted to electricity - of around 10% or more.

However the emerging DSSC industry, consisting of materials suppliers in league with the research community and corporations developing production techniques, is facing its toughest challenge yet: preparing the technology for commercial markets.

Production

Start-up Solaronix has a three-fold strategy to overcome this challenge. It encompasses the development of production techniques with printing at its heart; scaling up processes for commercial-grade materials, cost-effectively, but of the same high performance achieved by the company's lab-produced versions; and subjecting its DSSC modules to rigorous tests to monitor their performance. The Switzerland-based company maintains close links with the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where DSSCs were invented.

Readily available materials and simple manufacturing processes suggest that industrialising DSSC technology could result in low-cost PV electricity, costing less than $0.50 (€0.38) per watt peak, when produced in high volumes.

As well as potentially resulting in large-scale, low-cost PV production, DSSC technology has several attributes that make it attractive for the building-integrated PV (BIPV) market. The cells can be used in semi-transparent modules, such as glazing and windows, and in different colours, such as bright red or petrol green, depending on the sensitising dye.

Simplifying module structure

Solaronix is developing DSSC materials and fabrication techniques to enable the use of the technology in outdoor applications and ultimately products for the BIPV market. To do so requires a low-cost print-production process. In addition to this Solaronix is scaling-up the production of high-performance ruthenium dyes, nano-crystalline TiO2 and electrolyte components for industrial use at low cost.

To reduce the bill of materials, and to simplify production, the company is using a monolithic integrated module (MIM) design to produce large-area DSSC modules.

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This article appears in full in Volume 3, issue 2 of +Plastic Electronics magazine, including an exclusive insight into Solaronix's plans to ramp up production of its solar cells and materials.
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