Dyesol to join Wales’ Swansea uni SPECIFIC project

Nov 4, 2013 - Australian firm Dyesol Ltd (ASX:DYE) said Sunday it planned to become an official partner of Wales’ Swansea University’s Sustainable Product Engineering Centre for Innovation in Functional Coatings (SPECIFIC) project, which aims to develop functional coatings to turn buildings into power stations.

As part of the project, the Australian photovoltaic (PV) technology company will be engaged in solid-state dye solar cell (DSC) electrical optimisation and process engineering. Via its participation, the firm will be able to speed up the industrialisation of its solar technology by focusing on key areas of development, it said.

A group of 55 researchers including leading university groups in the UK, along with Indian steel manufacturer Tata Steel Ltd (BOM:500470), participate in the GBP-20-million (USD 32m/EUR 23.6m) SPECIFIC initiative, which will run for five years at the Baglan Bay Innovation and Knowledge Centre.

Dyesol said it was also in talks to boost its presence at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), where it will have a team of experts that will help accelerate the scale-up of the new solid-state material set. The company and EPFL have already hit 15% conversion efficiency and are aiming at more. The partnership with the institute will support Dyesol in achieving mass production of solid-state DSC glass and steel for building integrated PV (BIPV) applications by 2016/17, it said.

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