Such projects sponsored by the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI) intends to encourage small and medium enterprises to innovate through research and development in partnership with public research institutes. Solaronix’ constant strive for better and cheaper solar energy, as well as LPI’s expertise in this field, make it an ideal association for a CTI project.

Solaronix’ long term mastery of nano-particle synthesis, ink formulation, and printing techniques for the deposition of micron-thin active materials, will be put to good use for the fabrication of Perovskite Solar Cells. On the other hand, LPI’s proficiency in new material discovery and characterization, mechanism elucidation, and world renowned ability to break solar cell efficiency records, is undoubtably the best asset to the collaboration that could ever be. Both entities have spent more than 15 years developing Dye Solar Cells, from which the newer Perovskite Solar Cells inherit a number of ingredients and manufacturing techniques.

Last year, MIT Technology Review writes:

“The material is dirt cheap,” says Michael Grätzel, who is famous within the solar industry for inventing a type of solar cell that bears his name. His group has produced the most efficient perovskite solar cells so far—they convert 15 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity, far more than other cheap-to-make solar cells.

Indeed, Perovskite Solar Cells rely on a simple light absorbing material having a crystalline structure common to natural mineral calcium titanate. Fewer than a gram per square meter of this material is sufficient to convert sunlight to electricity with unprecedented efficiencies for thin-film solar cells. Perovskite Solar Cells unarguably open the path to efficient and low-cost third generation photovoltaics.

This 24 month long project will lead Solaronix and LPI to demonstrate the feasibility of industry compliant Perovskite Solar Cells built on affordable yet efficient materials, utilizing inexpensive manufacturing processes.

The 3 lucky winners are:

• Vittoria Sacchetto (Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale)
• Pavel Chabera (Lund University)
• Michael Price (University of Cambridge)

Congratulations! You will all receive a customized Dye Solar Cell featuring the patterns of your choice, demonstrating the great design flexibility offered by our solar technology.

Many thanks to all of the participants who filled-in our short survey on our booth. Your contribution will definitely help us improving our services and our products, starting where you want it the most.

The Solaronix Team.

During his talk “When Solar Energy Enters Your Innovation”, our CEO Toby Meyer exposed the photovoltaic solutions offered by Solaronix, and showed how our expertise with the technology opens up new possibilities.
One can imagine integrating Dye Solar Cells into the fields of architecture and urban planning, to various industries, and to other high technologies.
By combining transparency, colors, and elegance, our solar cells can transform products, giving them a dynamic and exclusive character.

The venue of the conference was not selected by chance.
The SwissTech Convention Center was officially inaugurated 3 April 2014 on the campus of EPFL.
We are proud to have produced the multicolored photovoltaic facade mounted on the western wall of this architectural masterpiece.
This exclusive realization illustrates brilliantly what the technology is capable of in terms of building integration.

We had also planned for a little surprise.
The press conference culminated with the exhibition of the Current Table, delivered just in time from Marjan van Aubel’s workshop in London.
This fabulous and futuristic piece of furniture design makes use of Solaronix’ solar panels.
Its glass surface remains transparent while also harvesting ambient light.
The integrated USB ports allow then to recharge autonomously devices like smartphones.

We are very thankful to all the attendees who shown by their presence an interest for our photovoltaic technology, thank you all.

The Solaronix Team

Download the press kit: Press Kit (french)

Marjan van Aubel: Current Table

Exit with the unique catalog, it’s been now conveniently split in 3 brochures, one for each division of Solaronix.

Solaronix Materials

The brochure describing the chemicals and components offered by Solaronix to the Dye Solar Cell and Perovskite Solar Cell professionals.

Solaronix Materials Brochure

[PDF, 2.3 MB]

Solaronix Solar Cells

An introduction to the novel colored and transparent solar panels developed by Solaronix.

Solaronix Solar Cells Brochure

[PDF, 3.2 MB, de, fr]

Solaronix Equipment

The brochure to learn about our solar simulators and the exclusive sun-like light source they rely on.

Solaronix Equipment Brochure

[PDF, 2.1 MB]

Company leaflet

A concise presentation of Solaronix and our 3 activities.

Solaronix Leaflet

[PDF, 2 MB]

Our scientists locked themselves in the lab to investigate those Perovskite Solar Cells until they came up with a load of new products.
We are now very pleased to announce the availability of a new set of products dedicated to Perovskite Solar Cells.

Special Ti-Nanoxide products

Perovskite Solar Cells are making use of titania dioxide in two different ways.
First, the device is build up from a compact layer of TiO₂ residing on the TCO substrate.
Second, a thin mesoporous layer of titanium dioxide nano-particles acts as an electron-selective scaffolding.

Ti-Nanoxide BL/SP

Ti-Nanoxide BL/SP is a screen-printable paste aimed at the deposition of a thin and dense, pinhole-free layer of titanium dioxide.
Such a blocking-layer will prevent the hole transport material or the perovskite to directly enter in contact with the conductive substrate.

Ti-Nanoxide T600/SP and Ti-Nanoxide T300/SP

Ti-Nanoxide T600/SP and Ti-Nanoxide T300/SP are a set of screen-printable pastes containing 15-20 nm titanium dioxide anatase particles.
Printing any of these with a 61-64 polyester mesh yields a ~600 nm or a ~300 nm thick layer respectively, after sintering at 475°C.
The resulting layer presents an optimized thickness and porosity for application in Perovskite Solar Cells.

Perovskite Precursor

The light absorber commonly found in Perovskite Solar Cells is methylammonium lead(II) iodide.
It is synthesized in-situ from two precursors, lead iodide, and methylammonium iodide.
While the former is available from most raw material suppliers, methylammonium iodide is a specialty material no so common.
You will find now methylammonium iodide from Solaronix with purity grade targeted for solar cell application.

Hole Transport Material

Charge generation occurs in the perovskite material, this intrinsic layer is sandwiched between electron-selective and hole-selective materials
which ensure together charge separation.
The titania layer discussed here first acts as an electron-selective material.
On the other end, the hole-selective material is typically Spiro-OMeTAD, now also available from Solaronix.

Perovskite Cell Kit

With our special titania pastes, perovskite precursor, and hole transport material, you are now fully equipped to investigate Perovskite Solar Cells.
But that’s not all, we have also come up with a whole new kit containing ready-to-use electrodes for this novel photovoltaic technology.

Researchers can now benefit from high quality titania electrodes specifically designed for experimenting with Perovskite Solar Cells.
Electrodes are available at different stages of layering:

• etched FTO electrodes, allowing for any sort of build-up,
• blocking-layer titania electrodes (etched FTO plus a titania blocking layer), ideally completed with you own scaffolding material,
• scaffolding titania electrodes (etched FTO, blocking layer, plus a 300 or 600 nm thick mesoporous layer), enabling perovskite light absorber investigations straight away,

Whether you would like to make Perovskite solar cells from the ground up, or speed up the process with our kit electrodes,
there is definitely a Solaronix product to help you out.

Learn more on our webshop

The Solaronix Team

Since 2009, the congress has grown strong reputation, and gathers every year renowned scientists working in that field.
It’s the event Dye Solar Cell professionals cannot miss. Solaronix has sponsored all HOPV events since the beginning, and 2014 will be no exception to that.

This year is also special. The conference will be held in Switzerland, near Solaronix’ headquarters, in the all-new SwissTech Convention Center in EPFL.
This futuristic building inaugurated in April hosts the world’s first multicolored Dye Solar Cell façade made by Solaronix.

You’ve got it, we are making things big this year. Come to visit our exhibition booth during the conference, and discover all those great things we are thrilled to show you:

• the solar panels built for the SwissTech Convention Center,
• the solar-powered autonomous luminescent furniture installed on EPFL campus,
• the Current Table, by Marjan van Aubel, the interior furniture charging electronic devices with Solar energy,
• and, our new table-top affordable solar simulator specially designed for the lab.

Take the opportunity to meet with our staff, let us know about your needs, questions, or comments. Your feedback is invaluable to us.

See you soon !

The Solaronix Team

The summit will highlight political and economical aspects for a rapid expansion of the photovoltaic marked in the country, but also discuss the impact on the grid, and the different technologies to be put in use.

An exhibition will take place in addition the conference talks, and Solaronix will hold a booth alongside other Swiss PV professionals.
You are cordially invited to meet us there, we will be presenting our novel colored and transparent Dye Solar Cell panels.

The 12th National Photovoltaic Symposium is the first congress to be hosted in the SwissTech Convention Center.
The prestigious building located on EPFL campus, freshly inaugurated, notably features the world’s first multi-colored Dye Solar Cell façade made by Solaronix.

Meet you there,

The Solaronix Team

Its new interface was carefully polished to be pleasant at any screen size, from desktop to tablet and smartphone.

The navigation was thought through to clearly distinguish our 3 activities up front: Materials, Solar Cells, and Equipment. Those sections will teach you everything you need to know about our competences. To keep things clear and concise, detailed product lists and further product information are now exclusively presented on our webshop at shop.solaronix.com.

We also took extra care to make contacting us a breeze. The Contacts page now offers a form to send us an email right there, and has all other information you would need to get in touch with us. For instance, the new Support section allows you to conveniently create help desk tickets backed up by our entire staff.

Have a nice visit,

The Solaronix Team

This futuristic edifice aim at being a living laboratory of congress centers. Indeed, the SwissTech Convention Center makes use of the latest high-end technologies.
The main theater can be divided to 2 or 3 separated rooms, and can be configured to fit with virtually any situation thanks to mechanized seat rows.
Combined with other clever uses of technology such as smart display signs, there is no doubt the SwissTech Convention Center rises the bar for congress platforms.

The SwissTech Convention Center is also of great value to us, and attending the inauguration filled us with pride.
The story between Solaronix and the SwissTech Convention Center began more than 2 years ago, when the architects at Richter Dahl Rocha and artist Catherine Bolle contacted us with the ambitious goal to cover the west façade of the building with colored and transparent photovoltaic panels.

This naturally appeared an excellent match for the solar cell technology we have been developing since the inception of the company, but yet a challenge for a technology that hasn’t been put in use at a large scale like such before.
After a long but necessary phase of study, we finally entered production in 2013 and delivery timely all of the 355 panels on the construction site in October.
This inauguration marks a milestone for Solaronix, but also for the entire technology as it constitutes the world’s first multicolored Dye Solar Cell façade.

The Dye Solar Cell façade of the SwissTech Convention Center is a real-scale demonstrator of our photovoltaic technology, particularly for building integration.
We are now really eager to realize other exclusive installations to stimulate the adoption of our solar cells.

Architects, technology pioneers and investors, fee free to contact us, inquiries are welcome.

The Solaronix Team

SwissTech Convention Center website:
www.tstcc.ch

Flickr photo album:
www.flickr.com/photos/122002529@N03/sets/72157643250957845/

YouTube video (see 1’37″ – 2’02″):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pznj-KM1J8

EPFL press kit:

actu.epfl.ch/newsarchive/the-swisstech-convention-center-a-lab-for-conferen/ [english]

actu.epfl.ch/newsarchive/le-swisstech-convention-center-laboratoire-pour-le/ [french]

London-based designer Marjan van Aubel has just unveiled her latest creation, the Current Table.
Her sublime piece of furniture makes here a clever use of our solar modules for indoor application.

Indeed, the glass surface of the Current Table is made of Solaronix’ colored and transparent photovoltaic panels,
which pattern was tuned to match the esthetic of the furniture.

During day, ambient light is converted to electricity by the photovoltaic glass surface, and stored in batteries elegantly dissimulated in the table structure.
Then, USB ports present on each side of the Current Table allow to juice up your favorite portables devices from a renewable energy source.

Marjan’ realization is a superb example of a blend of art and technology.
Not only those solar panels contribute to the esthetic of the Current Table, but they also convert daylight to electricity for later use.

The Current Table will be exhibited in several fairs, find more information on Marjan’s website, and make sure to watch her presentation video.

The Solaronix Team

Marjan van Aubel: www.marjanvanaubel.com/work/current-table/

The video: vimeo.com/84964915