LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Clean technology company Verditek announced on Tuesday that itself and Cambridge-based graphene electronics technology development company Paragraf updated the market on Tuesday, on their work together to harness the significant advantages of graphene to improve the performance of solar power generation over "state-of-the-art" cells and modules.
The AIM-traded company said Paragraf's proprietary manufacturing process of large scale, high quality, graphene had been applied to its solar technology, with the two parties said to be "pleased" to announce the successful completion of their first development project.

It said the programme had developed unique methodologies to successfully produce graphene on photovoltaic proof-of-concept cells, to harness the superior electrical and mechanical properties that graphene could impart.

The cell worked without the encumbrance of metallic busbars or backplates required in conventional photovoltaic cells.

Verditek said the new cell took advantage of the "superior quality" of Paragraf graphene and proprietary manufacturing process to replace conventional materials with graphene, enabling the properties initially cited in the Nobel prize for Physics awarded in 2010 to be realised at an industrially significant scale.

Further to that "breakthrough", Paragraf and Verditek had agreed to a second joint development project to improve the performance of the cells, develop the opportunity to file patents and, upon attainment of additional performance targets, commence commercial discussions for industrial manufacture and application of the new material.

The second joint development project was now underway, with a fast-track schedule of objectives.

"The potential of graphene to significantly improve the performance of today's technologies is enormous," said Paragraf chief executive officer Dr Simon Thomas.

"Applying Paragraf technology to mature materials can create opportunities for improved performance."

Dr Thomas said the company's second project followed on "seamlessly" from its previous work, and complemented its insights and understanding of graphene-solar cell combination.

"Our developments with Verditek will continue to improve on what we have achieved and demonstrate the potential graphene can deliver when great science and engineering are combined."

Lord David Willetts, chairman of Verditek, added that the company was now manufacturing light-weight robust photo-voltaic cells.

"These can be deployed in many more ways than heavy conventional cells - such as on weaker, temporary, or old roofing.

"We have now successfully applied graphene to a photovoltaic cell."

Lord Willetts said graphene could enable the firm's photovoltaic cells to be even lighter and more efficient.

"It enhances the performance of a PV cell by making it more conductive and eliminate the need for the electrical conductors which reduce the area of the cell actually exposed to sun-light.

"We have now developed the technique for applying graphene and produced a working proof of concept silicon/graphene integrated photovoltaic cell."

Verditek was now launching the next stage of its research and development to increase the performance of the new photovoltaic cells so they were more efficient than conventional cells, Lord Willetts said.

"At present conventional silicon photovoltaic cells convert approximately 21%-23% of the energy they received into electricity - we aim to get to better than 25%.

"That is a big increase in the amount of electricity generated from a given area of PV cell."

He said the "lightweight and efficient" photovoltaic cells would then be used in a wider range of settings.

"Our aim is to be able to apply them to consumer electronics such as laptops so that they can be self-charging.

"This is a massive advance for green energy - and for consumers who will find it much easier to access solar power than ever before."

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