Published 14-11-2022

Copper on solar cells, fly-ash in paint: UNSW start-ups on show at Expo

14-11-2022
CAPTION: Dr. Daniel Chen (L) and Dr. Jack Colwell (R) of SunDrive Solar at the UNSW Expo

With investors, governments and even risk-averse super funds funnelling millions into commercialising early stage Australian technology projects, it’s a lucrative time to be an innovative start-up. 

University research collaborations are critical to the R&D ecosystem, and UNSW ranks as SCOPR’s* top institution in Australia for startups and commercial spin-offs, particularly in engineering and physical sciences.  

“We can only do so much on our own. To get our products to market, we need to collaborate with industry and investors. It’s always been part of our remit but it’s accelerated in the last few years, one of the silver linings from Covid perhaps,” says Warwick Dawson, Director of Knowledge Exchange at UNSW. 

One hundred of the latest innovations and capabilities powered by UNSW were on show at the university’s Research Translation Expo in October, where the uni’s entrepreneurs and researchers mixed with businesses, investors and industry partners. 

One area the university has always led the way is in solar cell technology. 

UNSW’s Sydney Scientia Professor Martin Green invented the Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC) technology that’s now used in more than 90% of the world’s solar cells, and he and his team have been recognised for this with the prestigious and lucrative 2022 Millennial Technology Prize.

But when Prof. Green developed the PERC technology in the early 80s, his team was unable to manufacture it here at a competitive cost. So the technology was pushed offshore while Green and his team of students and researchers continued R&D on next-generation solutions. One of Green’s PhD students, Zhengrong Shi, set up Suntech Power in China and became the world’s first solar billionaire. 

Now, finally, the situation seems to be changing for Australia’s solar industry. The massive Sun Cable project in the NT aims to be the world’s biggest solar and battery storage project, sending most of its renewable energy via undersea cable to Singapore. And there’s local movement in solar cell manufacturing. 

Copper on solar cells 

One to watch is SunDrive Solar, started in 2015 by a UNSW PhD student who dropped out of his study to set up the company. 

In 2021, it fabricated a world record-breaking solar cell that uses copper rather than silver in its electrodes.

In an expanding solar sector, “the industry’s use of silver is growing to a point where it’s unsustainable,” says Jack Colwell, Senior Photovoltaic Engineer for Sundrive Solar and former UNSW PhD student, speaking at the Expo.

The industry’s been looking at copper for a while, Colwell told Industry Update, but no one’s really been able to perfect the technology, in particular to get the copper to adhere to the cell.

“So the solution SunDrive developed actually gets copper to stick to the cell,” says Colwell.

Given the abundance of copper compared with silver, and the purity of the copper that they electroplate, Colwell says this makes the concept viable for large-scale, low-cost and high-performance solar PV cell manufacturing.

SunDrive has just received $21 million in private investment to help it scale up its manufacturing, which it plans to start in Australia in 18 months.

Seeing the potential for Australian solar cell innovation to be manufactured here is not lost on Daniel Chen, also a former UNSW PhD student and Senior Photovoltaic Engineer with SunDrive.

“For us, this opportunity of taking research and applying it to a company in Australia, that’s huge.”

Fly-ash in paint

Continuing in the environmental vein and with the possibility of a market coup in the US, is UNSW-affiliated Vecor Technologies.

Fly-ash is an under-used by-product of burning coal to produce energy. Considered waste, some is used in cement and concrete while much is dumped in ponds or just stored underground. 

Vecor is processing fly-ash to make advanced materials for a variety of sectors which will benefit from lower costs and greater sustainability. 

One of those sectors is the paint industry, Vecor’s Alec Rowan told Industry Update at the Expo. 

“The paint industry uses large quantities of titanium dioxide. It’s one of the whitest substances on the planet and requires heavy refinement.”

Recent supply chain disruption has made sourcing titanium dioxide harder, says Rowan, which is where Vecor’s fly-ash comes in. 

“Currently we are developing a ceramic pigment using fly-ash as a partial replacement for titanium dioxide, and we expect to provide the replacement material at a significantly lower cost than titanium dioxide. 

“We also expect to improve the customer’s environmental profile by replacing a mined material with a recycled waste product.”

Vecor is now working with potential customers in the US to establish demand for its product.

"At the moment we’re working on establishing industrial scale manufacturing processes and continuing product trials,” says Rowan. 

“Vecor has been working with UNSW academics Professor Charles Sorrell and Associate Professor Pramod Koshy for more than a decade, and has established dedicated research laboratories at UNSW to support further technical innovation and product development for fly-ash use and also other product areas.”

UNSW has had a vital role in the company’s development, giving Vecor access to UNSW specialists in materials science and engineering, as well as facilities.

*The Survey of Commercialisation on Outcomes from Public Research, 2021, published by  Knowledge Commercialisation Australasia

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