Engineering Water Repellent Coatings by Functional Nano-Sponges: a Springboard to Stable Perovskite Devices (SPIKE)

Descrizione del progetto

Una tecnologia basata su nano-rivestimenti intelligenti per l’industria dell’incapsulamento solare

L’incapsulamento solare è fondamentale per fornire un’eccellente durata al modulo fotovoltaico, garantendone la fattibilità commerciale. Questa tecnica consente lo sfruttamento sul mercato di nuove tecnologie solari emergenti, come il solare in perovskite ibrida, un attore chiave tra i metodi fotovoltaici in via di affermazione che costituisce un potenziale sistema rivoluzionario per l’integrazione del fotovoltaico intelligente nella vita di tutti i giorni. Ciononostante, a discapito del loro costo accessibile e della flessibilità che offrono, la bassa durata di queste tecnologie ne limita il successo sul mercato. Il progetto SPIKE, finanziato dall’UE, dimostrerà e preparerà alla commercializzazione un’innovativa tecnologia basata su nano-rivestimenti intelligenti in grado di rivoluzionare l’industria dell’incapsulamento solare. Il rivestimento è costituito da nano-spugne porose che risultano funzionali, trasparenti, flessibili e versatili allo stesso tempo.

Obiettivo

The SPIKE project aims at realizing a revolutionary water repellent coating as a functional barrier to encapsulate photovoltaic (PV) electronic devices. Global solar encapsulation industry, massively pushed by the urgent increase in the solar energy demand, is expected to reach $11.37 billion by 2028 with a growing rate of 14.5% during the forecast period (2021 - 2028). Solar encapsulation is key to provide excellent durability to a PV module, an essential pre-requisite for its commercial viability. This is particularly true for the market exploitation of any new emerging solar technologies. Hybrid perovskite solar is an example: a key player in emerging PVs and a potential revolutionary system for smart PV integration in everyday life – being low-cost, coloured, and flexible. Their low durability, however, questions their marketable appeal. SPIKE aims to solve this issue demonstrating and bringing to the market an innovative technology based on smart nano-coatings which can revolutionize the solar encapsulation industry, and beyond. The coating is made of porous nano-sponges with tuneable functionality, transparency, flexibility, versatility and at reduced cost, overcoming the limits of the current commercial encapsulants (heavy, thick, costly, and involving high temperature processing). It is the goal of SPIKE to unleash the innovation potential of the proof of concept, by developing, technically validating, and bringing to the market such innovative technology, by: i) realizing low-cost, large area, robust coatings with a low energy consuming solution-based fabrication process; ii) integrating them in highly efficient perovskite solar modules; iii) demonstrating and validating a prototype in an industrially relevant environment; and iv) providing a reliable business model and market analysis to push our prototype to a commercial stage, building the bricks for the creation of a new start-up company, ultimate outcome of SPIKE.