The first nanowire on graphene UVC LED technology able to give the efficiency, lifetime, and cost needed for mass deployment disinfection

Project Information

SteriLED

Grant agreement ID: 969264

DOI

10.3030/969264

Project closed

EC signature date 31 May 2021

Start date 1 April 2021

End date 31 March 2023

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 3 433 125,00

EU contribution

€ 2 403 187,50

Coordinated by

CRAYONANO AS
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SteriLED (The first nanowire on graphene UVC LED technology able to give the efficiency, lifetime, and cost needed for mass deployment disinfection)

Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2023-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

UVC LEDs can be used for the disinfection of water, air and surfaces and replace today’s mercury-based lamps that are toxic and unsustainable. Water purification is the largest market segment, and more than half the world does not have access to clean and safe water. UVC LEDs are a viable and sustainable solution. However, since UVC LEDs emerged several years ago, they have been manufactured in much the same way as previous generations of LEDs for visible light, not optimized for the high applications requirements for UVC disinfection which has a real human impact if not done properly. The demand and need for reliable and safe UVC disinfection equipment has increased by nearly 1,000% during the COVID-19 pandemic. As countries prepare for a future pandemic, safety regulations for robust disinfection solutions, the growth in demand in many commercial sectors such as hospitals, offices, hotels and restaurants for surface disinfection and air treatment purposes, expansion in the UVC disinfection equipment market is forecast to continue at a remarkable growth rate of 19% to 2027.

The goal of CrayoNano SteriLED project is to develop UVC LEDs based on new nanomaterials with improved performance and low cost, outperforming traditional thin film based UVC LEDs. Our UVC LED arrives at a crucial time to feed this growth with an efficient UVC LED technology, which will allow OEMs to move away from traditional mercury lamps and towards sustainability. Our breakthrough UVC LED technology will provide: a) High wall plug efficiency of 12%, which is in the range of mercury lamps and 60-91% higher efficiency than current market-available UVC LEDs. b) Longest lifetime at 20,000 hours, which is equivalent to that of some industrial mercury lamps. c) High optical power of 250mW (at 500 mA) resulting in by far the highest intensity on the UVC LED market. d) Low cost at €50/W, which is up to significantly cheaper than existing UVC LEDs.

We have had significant technical progress in our technology development on many aspects and implemented a packaged product (vehicle) to validate and test packaging and production processes, as well as successfully gaining key customers acceptance and confirmation of market requirements with our test vehicle device – 100mW, 5% wall plug efficiency, and >10,000 hours lifetime.
The growing demand from customers shows strong commercial traction and interest in integrating UVC LEDs, and further supports the need and potential of CrayoNano’s nanomaterials and nanotechnology-based approach to develop an outperforming, reliable and extremely powerful UV-C LED device. Our technology and planned roadmap of performance and price scaling, will continue to be disruptive and game changing, enabling the market towards mass market adoption and opening access to industrial applications where large volume capacities in the millions of cubic meters and liters of air and water need to be treated, disinfect large public spaces and surfaces in transportation, and enable new applications to meet the market’s full potential.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

CrayoNano has developed and packaged a 45mil SteriLED chip demonstrator (WP1). The SteriLED architecture design has been successful in showing UVC LED emission combined with complete absence of dislocations. Analyses of prototype samples of nanowire structured LEDs have repeatedly demonstrated a core underpinning of this novel technology: threading dislocations, the main drawback of traditional thin-film LED technology, have been completely prevented through the use of nanowire structured LEDs. Thus, CrayoNano’s technology indeed has the potential to disrupt the competitive landscape and state of the art UV-C LED technology through higher power, longer life, higher yields, and thus lower costs. An optimized production line of well over tens of thousands of chips per day has resulted in high product yield for CrayoNano’s first UVC LED product (WP2), well demonstrating the commercial potential for our disruptive UV-C LED chip technology.

Several OEMs have integrated our samples into their POU water systems and validated disinfection performance. The product was certified to IEC 62471 and NSF/ANSI Standard 55 compliance was demonstrated through product testing to meet the required LED performance. The commercial acceptance of our product, confirmed market demand and need, but customers are demanding our game-changing technology approach to achieve higher power, lower costs, at the same quality that our future technology has the potential to deliver (WP3 and WP4), in line with the roadmap defined in the original project proposal.

We have been very active disseminating project results to our customers and stakeholders through our executed two-part communication plan (WP4). We have built a solid foundation for our marketing strategy through a strong presence on social media and other digital channels and media, customer visits, attendance at over 10 industry events (incl. conferences, workshops and exhibitions) to increase brand awareness and visibility for CrayoNano in the market. We have also worked further on the IP protection of our technology and have received several new grants worldwide. In addition we have set up a detailed process for patent monitoring and performed an extensive FTO indicating no apparent IP risks of our technology (WP5).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The result from the project shows there is a commercial and high market demand for UVC disinfection, and the potential for CrayoNano’s nanomaterials and nanotechnology-based UV-C LED device to enable more energy and cost efficient UVC disinfection solutions. By demonstrating the superior performance of our stress and dislocation free, nanotechnology-based UVC LEDs compared to standard conventional thin-film LEDs, CrayoNano’s technology will pave the way for this technology for many other applications. Efforts to improve wall plug efficiencies and unlock the full potential of nanostructures in semiconductor products represent a crucial area of development, which we will continue to perform as our company grows.

Our UVC LEDs address the UN sustainable goal (SDG) 6 to ensure clean water for all by 2030. After the successful market acceptance of our UVC LEDs for the water disinfection market, we expect that the impact will spread to other markets and revolutionize UVC applications, such as surface and packaging material sterilization and air purification. The more immediate environmental impacts of UVC LEDs are related to its ability to provide clean, safe, reliable and inexpensive drinking water that is accessible at the source, using just a small amount of energy and by reducing the use of toxic chemicals such as chlorine and mercury lamps. The possibilities for broader market impact beyond the domains where these benefits are already well-established and new types of semiconductor devices that can be applied in solar cells, other LEDs, optoelectronic devices, as well as lasers, power and nano electronics.

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