Natcore ready with silver-free solar cell structure

Natcore Technology (CVE:NXT) said today it has achieved the long-term objective of replacing silver in solar cells with aluminum.

Scientists at the US company’s Rochester R&D Center have built an all-back-contact silicon heterojunction (SHJ) cell structure using aluminum and no silver at all, without recording any loss of performance. For comparison, the traditional solar panel uses about one-half of an ounce of silver. That metal represents about 11% of the total raw material cost of a solar module.

The company will submit a provisional patent application within the next two weeks.

Natcore pointed at how much more expensive silver is currently compared to aluminium -- silver costs about USD 15.28 (EUR 13.85) per troy ounce compared to USD 0.05 for the same quantity of aluminum. Significant cost saving will be achieved even though it would take twice as much aluminum as silver in order to keep the same conductivity from cell to cell.

"Solar cell manufacturers will no longer be subject to the vagaries of the silver market,” commented Chuck Provini, Natcore president and CEO.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.906)

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