16 April 2015

Nanoco wins £400,000 Innovate UK grant for collaboration with Loughborough University

Nanoco Group plc of Manchester, UK, which produces cadmium-free quantum dots and other nanomaterials for applications including LCD displays, lighting, solar cells and bio-imaging, has been awarded a £399,562 grant from UK Government agency Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board) - under its Energy Catalyst program - in connection with the further development of the firm's printable solar cell technology.

The grant will fund Nanoco's part of a collaborative project with Loughborough University's Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST), which will also receive an Innovate UK grant for the project. CREST is a UK center for photovoltaic research, offering facilities and technical expertise.

The aim of the two-year project, which has a total value of almost £1m, is to build on Nanoco's progress in solar energy by using its copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) solar ink to create a solution-processed, integrated, thin-film photovoltaic mini-module.

Nanoco and CREST will work together to optimize the CIGS mini-module architecture. CREST's wide range of analytical techniques will be used to assist in the mini-module's development and measurement.

"We have already achieved an efficiency of around 17% from the solar ink and it is the objective of this grant-funded project to scale the technology up to the size of a mini-module," notes Nanoco's CEO Michael Edelman.

Tags: CIGS Thin-film PV

Visit: www.nanocotechnologies.com

Visit: www.lboro.ac.uk/crest