Dyesol : New Materials

Recently we broadened our range of products by releasing new materials. For this occasion Dr Yanek Hebting, Dyesol's Materials Research and Development Manager, answers a few questions and explains us the process of developing new materials:

How long does it take to develop a new product?

That strongly depends on the product, for products like Titania pastes it can take up to years to develop, optimise and produce a successful formulation. For products such as single molecules, the exercise is usually very complex as it depends on the number of steps involved in the synthesis and purification of the material itself.

What are the difficulties of developing a new product?

That strongly depends on the product, for products like Titania pastes it is finding the right formulation which, in a multi-component system, usually means undertaking a large number of experiments to discover the ONE. For products such as single molecules, the difficulties range from optimising the experimental synthetic conditions to maximise the yields of each reaction step to have as much desired product as possible in the end. The same is valid for the subsequent purification steps, the process should not "waste" too much desired product otherwise the output at the end become economically unattractive. Also, finding and developing novel processes to manufacture products at scales larger than what is published in the academic literature is often much more intricate than the science itself as consideration of practical scale up and economic benefits need to be addressed.

How do you choose the products you will be developing?

Here again that depends on the product; some products are the result of academic collaborations where a product or a family of products are developed to supplant an existing product with alternates having better outcomes. Other products are developed in-house to tackle specific issues. As for the last type of products, they are developed to address client requests. Obviously the most pertinent reason is that the product is not already available on the open market, if it is, then the development is driven by significant advantages such as lower manufacture cost, competitor advantages such as novel IP and process know-how.

What are the particularities of the following products you've developed, and why did you develop them?

• Diammonium
  • Diammonium salts were developed as molecular anchors to weld sub-crystalline structure together in hybrid perovskites structures such as Methylammonium Lead Iodide structures to increase the thermal tolerance of the macromolecular architecture and therefore prolonging the lifetime of the device.

• H101 and H111
  • These two products are the result of a collaboration between NTU and Dyesol where the goal was to develop alternative Hole Transport Material to SPIRO. SPIRO being the current reference, it is unstable and expensive; thus simpler, cost effective and robust alternatives are needed.

• 5-AVAI
  • The development and use of 5-AVAI in solid state was published by the Graetzel group. When used as an additive in solid state cells, 5-AVAI has been found to increase the connectivity between perovskite crystals and the mesoporous Titania. The 5-AVAI also acts as a surfactant and modifies the wetability of the components thus increasing the silkiness during the deposition process.

If you wish to buy or browse our materials, visit our Web Site or download our materials list.

Dr Yanek Hebting, Materials Research and Development Manager