Nanometric Silver Dispersion for Inkjet Gets $3.5 Million to Make PV Nano Cells
PV Nano Cell Ltd. has completed a funding round of approximately $3.5 million. The round was led by the Infinity IP Bank (China) participating also the Israel Electric Corporation's Karat program, Slobel (Belgium), and Terra VP venture capital fund. Terra VP was also the seed investor of about $1.5 M. To date, PV Nano Cell has raised an approximate total of $5.5 million from investors, including the Chief Scientist at the Israeli Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Energy and Water resources.
PV Nano Cell (PVN) is developing disruptive technology that achieves significant cost reduction in the manufacturing process of silicon cells as well as in Printed Electronics through inkjet printing of inks based on nano metric crystal materials. Inkjet printing, a well-known mass production printing technology in many industrial fields, is penetrating the electronic market in general and the silicon solar cell field in particular.
PVN inkjet conductive inks are the market enabler for inkjet printers' producers & substantial cost reduction enabler for Printed Electronic applications and Solar cells non-contact metallization (generating savings of 20% on cost per watt for silicon cells) as well as substantially reducing hazardous waste effluents in the production processes.
PVN is introducing to the market the first cost efficient conductive ink, based on stable Nano copper particles enabling a wide market penetration of inkjet digital conductive printing through excellent ink stability, printing and conductive properties and low wide commercially viable prices (as the inks are based on significantly cheaper metal - $ 8/kg for copper versus 750/kg for silver). Currently, the company is in the advanced stages of forming a joint venture in China, with a $2.5 million fund invested by the Chinese partner.
PV Nano Cell was founded in early 2010 by Dr. Fernando de la Vega, a PhD in applied chemistry and expert on nano-metric materials. According to de la Vega, who currently serves as the company's CEO, the technology developed by the company is not limited to printing photovoltaic cells, and is also expected to be utilized in other fields. "The company is stimulating great interest from potential investors and customers, mainly because the inks that we've developed allow for significantly reduced costs in the printing of conductive patterns. So far, we have focused on the photovoltaic market, we intend to expand by applying our technologies to additional applications, such as printing of various flexible electronic devices."
