G24 Innovations and a trio of Chinese institutes have agreed to accelerate development of the company's recently-debuted dye-sensitive solar cell technology.

November 4, 2009 -  G24 Innovations and a trio of Chinese institutes have agreed to accelerate development of the company's recently-debuted dye-sensitive solar cell technology.

Unde the deal, the company will work with the China National Academy of Nanotechnology & Engineering (CNANE) in Tianjin, the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry (CIAC, part of the China Academy of Sciences), and the Nanotechnology Industrialization Base of China (NIBC), all of which pledge to commit their resources toward "making significant advances in materials, manufacturing and scientific aspects" of G24's thin-film technology.

Professor Peng Wang, principal investigator of DSSC at CIAC and CNANE, was one of the principal contributors in DSSC development at the Swiss institute Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), from which G24 has licensed the technology since 2006 for a roll-to-roll manufacturing process. "Peng is doing great work here as he builds up his nanotechnology team. However, the research team doesn't focus on manufacturing and that’s why we want to work together with G24i," explained Prof. Xu Jianzhong, president of CNANE and NIBC, in a statement.

For G24, the partnership "represents a very significant opportunity for G24i to tackle some developmental challenges" and "achieve significant cost reductions in the near term," according to CEO John Hartnett. The company recently began shipping its DSSC modules to a Hong-Kong consumer electronics bag manufacturer, which will use the technology for energy harvesting on the bags to power mobile electronic devices.