NEW YORK—SolarWindow Technologies, Inc. announced that for the first time ever, the company has successfully produced its electricity-generating flexible glass using roll-to-roll processing, a high-speed method typical to commercial manufacturing of tinted window films, digital displays, printed electronics, and semiconductors. As thin as a business card, flexible sheets of SolarWindow electricity-generating glass generate power from sunlight and indoor artificial light, and are under development to electrify windows and otherwise passive surfaces on commercial buildings, automotive, aerospace, marine and other products.
“The world’s leading manufacturers use roll-to-roll production, an innovative process successfully demonstrated by the SolarWindow team today. Importantly, this roll-to-roll processing marks a significant advancement in our mission to enable commercial manufacturing in the United States and Asia,” said Jay S. Bhogal, Chairman and CEO, SolarWindow Technologies, Inc.
The news is especially timely with the company’s recent addition of several strategic hires and expansion of U.S. operations to Asia through newly established SolarWindow offices in Seoul, South Korea. The region is home to some of the world’s most advanced-technology manufacturers of next-generation electronics, building materials, electric vehicles, and commercial transportation systems—a natural fit with the company’s proprietary LiquidElectricity coatings for films, glass, and plastics, using high speed roll-to-roll processing.
The SolarWindow breakthrough was made possible when multiple layers of the company’s LiquidElectricity coatings were first applied onto ultra-thin flexible glass and then processed using precision lasers and a roll-to-roll system, in ongoing work underway at the U.S. Department of Energy’s, National Renewable Energy Labs in Golden, Colo., through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement.
A First at NREL
The announcement marks the first-ever such technical achievement to date on roll-to-roll processing at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo.
These highly technical advances include significant enhancements to managing materials processing through the roll-to-roll system when creating electricity-generating glass, specifically better travel and conveyance, accurate registration, greater edge position control, and improved precision during the process.
Importantly, these controls are key to increased power and performance of SolarWindow electricity-generating glass, as well as higher process efficiency, reduced operating costs and lower materials costs through less waste.
Furthermore, these precision controls allowed the company to successfully apply its proprietary laser process to today’s electricity-generating flexible glass. Initially developed by the company for plastics, this laser patterning system promises improved power output of SolarWindow electricity-generating glass while concurrently increasing production efficiencies and reducing costs.
Rather than creating laser patterns in its SolarWindow products using individual lasers, the company’s laser system enables a single laser beam to be split into multiple focused beams which are simultaneously applied to flexible materials during roll-to-roll manufacturing.
The development of the innovative SolarWindow laser beam patterning technology was performed in collaboration with NREL through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement from the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office with its Roll-to-Roll Advanced Materials Manufacturing Consortium, led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
