A USA startup has come up with a commercial process to swap silver paste in solar panels for copper—known as “CuBert”—with impressive results and new investors.
Co-founded in 2015 by an engineering professor and a post-doctoral researcher at Kentucky’s University of Louisville, Bert Thin Films is on a mission to promote copper paste as a cheap, high performance solar panel material.
Silver has been often been the go to metal in solar panels because of its super high conductivity, but its price rose 22% year on year in 2021 due to rising demand. Copper, which is nearly 1% the cost of silver, far more abundant and with nearly the same level of conductivity, is proving a smart replacement.
Copper is printed and fired the same way as silver paste by solar panel manufacturers, but given its a direct plug-and-play replacement that doesn’t require new technologies or machineries, the cost efficiencies are immediately realised.
“The idea of using copper as a replacement for silver has been an industry target for several years,” Bert Druffel from Bert Thin Films said. “But my co-founder and I came up with a concept that is a commercial alternative for silver and avoids any copper degradation issues.”
The idea is attracting a lot of interest. Kicked off in 2015 with a grant from the National Science Foundation, backers have lined up ever since, including the Kentucky state government, the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office plus a range of “angel investors”.
Bert Thin Film’s output is still in the testing phase, with Druffel reporting an enthusiastic early response from solar panel manufacturers evaluating the product.
Detail: https://www.bertthinfilms.com