I-Corps: Copper-Based Nanowire Pastes for Solar Panels

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是潜在地取代太阳能电池板，降低太阳能电池板的成本，使更广泛的采用成为可能。太阳能电池板制造在制造太阳能电池板顶部的导电母线和指栅时严重依赖导电浆料，目前估计导电浆料的市场潜力约为20亿美元，年复合增长率为4%。由于银组件占目前光伏太阳能电池成本的近20%，价格便宜100倍的铜浆可以大幅降低制造成本。新材料的开发增加了铜膏的销售和使用。这项技术的商业化提供了一个机会，通过以有吸引力的价格向太阳能电池板制造商提供高性能的导电浆料来加速对太阳能电池板的需求。这个i-Corps项目专注于确定高性能和低成本的铜纳米线浆料技术的商业化可行性，以帮助那些遭受高成本银浆痛苦的光伏太阳能电池板制造商，银浆要求较高的加工温度，并且容易受到银栅手指的腐蚀，从而降低电气性能。将进行客户发现，以检验一系列初始假设、确定市场机会并开发业务模式。硅基太阳能电池的制造涉及作为前电极的导电银浆的丝网印刷，以提供良好的接触和高效的电性能。主要障碍包括银的高成本、高温制造工艺和银栅指的腐蚀。这些障碍将通过使用可在室温下烧结和抗氧化的新型铜纳米线浆料来克服，用于制造太阳能电池板上的高导电性电极。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to potentially replace reduce the costs of solar panel, enabling wider spread adoption. Solar panel manufacturing depends heavily on conductive pastes in the manufacture of the conductive busbars and finger grids on the top of solar panels, with the market potential for the conductive pastes being currently estimated to be about $2 billion and its growth at a CAGR of 4%. With silver components accounting for close to 20% of the current photovoltaic solar cell costs, 100-fold cheaper copper pastes can substantially reduce the manufacturing cost. New materials developments have led to increases in copper paste sales and usages. Commercialization of this technology offers an opportunity to accelerate the demand for solar panels by supplying high-performance conductive pastes to solar panel manufacturers at attractive prices.This I-Corps project focuses on determining the commercialization feasibility of a high performance and low-cost copper nanowire paste technology to help photovoltaic solar panel manufacturers who suffer from the pain of high-cost silver paste that requires high processing temperature and is subject to corrosion of silver grid fingers to degrade the electrical performance. Customer discovery will be performed to test a number of initial hypotheses, identify the market opportunity, and develop the business model. Manufacturing of silicon-based solar cells involves screen printing of conductive silver pastes as front electrodes to provide good contact and efficient electrical performance. Major barriers include high cost of silver, high-temperature manufacturing process and corrosion of silver grid fingers. These barriers will be overcome by using new copper nanowire pastes that are sinterable and oxidation-resistant at room temperature for manufacturing highly conductive electrodes on solar panels.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.