Recovery Act - Advancement of Nano-Material Production for OPV Acceptors

Luna has developed new class of acceptor materials based on exclusive Trimetasphere carbon nanomaterial (TMS) technology. Trimetasphere carbon nanomaterials, have a trimetallic nitride cluster enclosed within a C80 fullerene (see Figure 1). The metals captured within the cage can be changed allowing TMS-based acceptors to be tuned to more favorably align the molecular orbitals between acceptor and a wide range of donor materials. This unique ability allows TMS acceptors to maximize the open circuit voltage (Voc) of an organic photovoltaic (OPV) device thereby reducing the energy loss during the charge separation process. A Voc increase of up to 44% has been demonstrated through direct substitution of TMS for C60-based acceptors. Overall energy conversion efficiency increased by 38% for these test devices. Material handling and device fabrication processes are essentially the same for devices using either acceptor. Therefore, the key challenge regarding device manufacturing is the cost to manufacture the TMS acceptor material, which must be significantly reduced. The objective of this proposal is to reduce the manufacturing cost of TMS by developing a three phase AC arc reactor and helium recycling system capable of continuous operation. The proposed reactor process will provide a 90% reduction in manufacturing cost for the base TMS material by eliminating non-value added process steps, improving equipment utilization (2.5x), and increasing process throughput (24x). Luna utilizes a detailed model to track production costs. This model will quantify and track progress in terms of cost savings realized by development and implementation of the new reactor process. The results of the proposed effort will have a crucial impact on the development of the organic photovoltaic market by enabling fabrication of more efficient solar cell devices at a cost in line with that of existing devices. Trimetasphere carbon nanomaterials are the first novel advancement in acceptor technology since the introduction of today