iTi Solar today announced
that the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
has installed inkjet and spray workstations supplied by iTi Solar in NREL's
advanced Atmospheric Processing Platform, which is located in the Process Development
and Integration Laboratory at the National Center for Photovoltaics. NREL will
use the iTi Solar workstations to develop low-cost atmospheric processing methods
and materials for use in photovoltaic applications. iTi Solar is a division
of iTi Corporation dedicated to advancing the economics of clean, renewable
energy through the use of industrial inkjet technologies.
For many applications, solar cells today are not cost-competitive with more
traditional sources of energy. Reducing material costs and process inefficiencies
through inkjet technology is an important component in NREL's research
project to reduce costs. Inkjet is emerging as a versatile, precise printing
method to advance manufacturing processes while lowering substrate, materials
and capital costs.
iTi Solar's Materials Deposition Systems (MDS), which are being used
as part of NREL's research project, enable digital deposition of a wide
range of fluids utilizing inkjet printhead and sprayer technologies. Inkjet
technologies offer manufacturing cost efficiencies for silicon-based, thin-film
and next generation photovoltaic cells.
“Inkjet printing is an attractive, viable alternative to many existing
deposition approaches and has the potential to produce high-quality solar cells
at reduced cost,” said Dr. Maikel van Hest, scientist, NREL. “After
a global competition, we selected iTi Solar's inkjet and sprayer systems.”
Much of today's research is focused on thin-film photovoltaic cells as
thin-film technology uses lower cost substrates compared to silicon and is suitable
for applying solar panels to many surfaces from roof shingles to cell phones.
Compared with traditional processes of coating, sputtering and etching, inkjet
is an additive, direct material deposition process. Drop placement is digitally
controlled so that only what is required is precisely deposited. This offers
considerable savings in applications utilizing high cost fluids by reducing
waste and raw material volumes. Because inkjet deposition is non-contact, there
is less damage to materials and therefore a wider range of highly efficient
but fragile substrate materials can be utilized in manufacturing.
Inkjet processes have the potential to greatly simplify the fabrication of
solar panels by reducing the number of manufacturing steps, making more efficient
use of expensive materials, and eliminating much of the vacuum equipment that
often requires a clean room environment.
“Addressing the global need for efficient, economic renewable energy
requires technology breakthroughs that improve conversion efficiencies and enable
low-cost manufacturing to drive mass scale production,” said Dr. Ross
Mills, chairman, founder and chief technology officer, iTi Corporation. “We
believe inkjet technologies combined with flexible, thin-film substrates hold
the greatest promise for significantly reducing solar cell manufacturing costs
and accelerating the use of solar energy.”
“Substantial inkjet knowledge and expertise is crucial to successfully
incorporate inkjet processes into production lines,” added Mills. “With
extensive experience and patented inkjet technologies, iTi is leveraging its
proven leadership in mastering the intricacies of inkjet to deliver reliable,
cost-effective manufacturing solutions to the solar industry.”
NREL's Atmospheric Processing Platform is a sophisticated, multi-functional
process line with integrated vacuum processing, materials analysis, inkjet and
spray stations housed within atmospherically controlled chambers. Its purpose
is to facilitate NREL research into the materials and processes required to
reduce the manufacturing costs of solar cell technology.
Posted April 22nd, 2009
