The University’s College of Engineering is part of the 'Photovoltaic Technology based on Earth Abundant Materials (PVTEAM) led by the University of Bristol in partnership with the Universities of Bath, Northumbria, and Loughborough and industrial partners Tata Steel, Johnson Matthey and NSG Holding (Europe).

Currently the raw materials that produce solar cells are costly, toxic and scarce and so the PVTEAM aims to replace those elements with new active materials for photovoltaic solar cells based on abundant and cost effective elements that will be safer and environmentally sustainable. They will work with incredibly thin technology, 30 times thinner than a single strand of hair, and made using only a few milligrams of copper, zinc and tin.

The team will also look at ways to develop and implement processes compatible with large-scale manufacturing in the UK. This material processing for the project will be based at Swansea’s sustainable product engineering centre for innovative functional industrial coatings (SPECIFIC), which will oversee designing scale-up strategies and preparing techno-economic assessment.

Senior Lecturer and Swansea lead for PVTEAM, Dr Trystan Watson said: “More solar energy falls on the Earth’s surface in one hour than the entire global population uses in a year. It is important that we increase our capabilities of using the sun as an energy source. This research project is dedicated to developing and delivering improved materials to make solar cells that are more environmentally sustainable that can be manufactured at scale so that the UK manufacturing industries can turn this technology into creating wealth and jobs.”

David Delpy, Chief Executive of the EPSRC, said: “Through the development and deployment of improved materials, processes and products that will come from this research, UK industries will be able to create wealth and new jobs, whilst at the same time tackling the societal and environmental challenges that resulted from the use of the original materials which were often rare and difficult to refine.”