The development of alternative, more efficient commercially viable routes to heavy metal-free quantum dot production to exploit developing markets in the electronics industry.

Nanoco是英国唯一的先进量子点（QDs）制造商和供应商，量子点是只有几纳米大小的微小半导体晶体。量子点表现出不同寻常和有趣的节能特性，在许多快速增长的市场上令人兴奋，包括电致发光显示器、固态照明、太阳能电池、生物技术和生物医学。与传统器件相比，量子点的许多优点包括更高的性能、更高的效率和显著降低的环境影响。开发其独特属性的新市场接近于商业开发。目前商业应用的大多数量子点都含有镉（Cd），这是一种对环境有害的有毒重金属。新的立法正在全球范围内防止/尽量减少Cd的使用，日本公司将不会利用任何基于Cd的技术。生物医学应用必然需要不含重金属的点。Nanoco已经开发了专有的合成路线，可以大量生产与基于cd的系统具有同等性能和稳定性的无重金属点。然而，目前使用的一些前体既昂贵又低效。Nanoco必须通过引入新的高效前体来发展现有工艺，以使量子点在工业规模上具有商业可行性，并有效地与现有和新兴技术竞争。该工艺的成本、能源使用和环境改善将使其在当前和新的电子和光电子应用中得到广泛应用。从其他前体途径合成无cd量子点需要详细的研究和开发。特别是需要新的反应堆设计，以适应这些新前体与现有前体相比的不同特性。该项目的最终结果将是基于改进的起始材料的工业可扩展过程的后期原型。

Nanoco is the sole UK manufacturer and supplier of state of the art quantum dots (QDs), tiny semiconductor crystals only a few nanometers in size. QDs exhibit unusual and interesting energy efficient properties that are exciting commercially in many fast growing markets including electroluminescent displays, solid state lighting, solar cells, biotechnology and biomedicine. The QDs’ many advantages over conventional devices include higher performance, increased efficiency and significantly lower environmental impact. New markets to exploit their unique properties are close to commercial exploitation.The majority of QDs currently in commercial applications contain cadmium (Cd), a toxicheavy metal which is damaging to the environment. New legislation is preventing/minimising the use of Cd worldwide and Japanese companies will not exploit any Cd-based technology. Of necessity biomedical applications require heavy metal free dots. Nanoco has developed proprietary synthetic routes to produce heavy metal free dots of equivalent performance and stability to Cd-based systems in large quantities. However, some of the precursors currently used are both expensive and inefficient. Nanoco must develop the existing process through the introduction of new and efficient precursors to allow QDs to be commercially viable on industrial scale-up and to compete effectively against existing and emerging technologies.Cost, energy usage and environmental improvements to the process will make theirwidespread use possible in current and new electronic and optoelectronic applications.The synthesis of Cd-free QDs from alternative precursor routes requires detailed investigation and development. In particular new reactor designs will be needed to accommodate the different properties of these new precursors compared to their existing counterparts.The end result of this project would be the late stage prototype of an industrial scalableprocess based on the improved starting materials.