| NSF Org: |
TI Translational Impacts |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | April 28, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | April 28, 2016 |
| Award Number: | 1639790 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Steven Konsek
TI Translational Impacts TIP Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships |
| Start Date: | May 1, 2016 |
| End Date: | October 31, 2016 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $50,000.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $50,000.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
2801 W BANCROFT ST TOLEDO OH US 43606-3328 (419)530-2844 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
2801 W Bancroft MS 218 Toledo OH US 43606-3390 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | I-Corps |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): | |
| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.084 |
ABSTRACT
This project aims to commercialize the technology this I-Corps team has developed for low-cost, high-performance solar cells. Laboratory testing has already demonstrated power output that is competitive with the best commercially available devices and improvements are still being made. The materials used in the proposed design are common and devices can be manufactured in a few simple steps. Depositing a pre-mixed solution at relatively low temperatures can produce these solar cells. This type of production lends itself to "roll-to-roll" fabrication on lightweight, flexible materials. The use of common materials and simple production techniques has the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of solar energy. In addition to large scale power generation, inexpensive, lightweight, flexible solar cells could find new applications in construction, portable power generation in disaster relief efforts, and military applications such as drones and remote power.
This team has developed a simple, and readily scalable, technique to rapidly and inexpensively produce large grain perovskite absorbers for perovskite solar cells. The results indicate that the large grain perovskite material this team has created results in fewer defects and increased device performance, similar to what is seen with other thin film solar cells. With all other photovoltaic (PV) devices, large grains are essential for high?]energy conversion. The team's goal is to determine the market interest in perovskite solar cell technology. This will help them determine the best path forward with the proposed technology - should they seek to become a provider of material, a perovskite solar cell manufacturer, or just license the technology to a company already in the solar marketplace. The team intends to learn to identify and quantify the metrics that must be met for adoption of this technology.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The NSF I-Corp is a unique program designed to help participants (1) learn the customer discovery process and data-supported decision making and (2) determine if their technology has a product-market fit. In our case the first objective was successfully completed. One early career professor and two graduate students participated in the I-Corp program. We interviewed over 110 potential customers of lightweight photovoltaic devices to learn what problems were most important to them. With the help of our mentor and the teaching team, we learned to interpret these results to determine if our technology could help solve the problem. Often the answer was no, and we were forced to pivot to a new customer segment. By understanding the customer needs, we now view our technology in a different light and have modified our research plans to help solve these real world problems. This new way of thinking about our research, and the ability to acquire the customer input, will be applicable throughout the rest of our careers and guide our research.
Because we were able to learn the customer discovery process, we could determine if there was a market for our technology. While several of our assumptions about what industries would be interested in lightweight photovoltaic devices were incorrect, we were able to identify a product-market fit. From the other lessons of the program, though, the initial product-market fit was determined to be too small to support a start-up company. By zooming out, we were able to maintain the product-market fit while increasing the market size. Several competitors already exist in the larger market, but after customer discovery interviews, we learned that there are problems with the competitors’ products, what the problems are, and that our technology has the potential to solve these problems without introducing new ones. We are now determining the path forward so we can modify our existing technology to meet these needs.
Last Modified: 01/16/2017
Modified by: Adam Phillips
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