iTi Solar, a division of iTi Corp. dedicated to advancing the economics of renewable energy through the use of industrial inkjet technologies, says that the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has installed ink-jet and spray workstations supplied by iTi Solar in NREL's advanced Atmospheric Processing Platform.
The platform is located in the Process Development and Integration Laboratory at the National Center for Photovoltaics. NREL will use the iTi Solar workstations to develop low-cost atmospheric processing methods and materials for use in photovoltaic applications.
For many applications, solar cells today are not cost-competitive with more traditional sources of energy, iTi Solar says. Reducing material costs and process inefficiencies through ink-jet technology is an important component in NREL's research project to reduce costs.
‘Ink-jet printing is an attractive, viable alternative to many existing deposition approaches and has the potential to produce high-quality solar cells at reduced cost,’ says Dr. Maikel van Hest, a scientist at NREL. ‘After a global competition, we selected iTi Solar's ink-jet and sprayer systems.’
SOURCE: iTi Solar
