Sofab Inks

Sofab Inks has announced that its nanoparticle inks have been used to produce 2 m × 1 m modules on a full-scale manufacturing line, with efficiency and stability that outperformed control devices. The company said the result shows its materials maintain their performance in a commercial manufacturing environment, and that additional production runs are already underway.

Sofab is also developing an inkjet-compatible formulation of its nanoparticle materials together with ink maker SAKATA INX, giving manufacturers another way to deposit them. The companies will share more about the ink at Perovskite Connect, taking place in Berlin on October 21-22, where Sofab and APS will also be exhibiting.

Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have achieved a preliminary power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 24.5% in perovskite solar cells using Tinfab, the tin oxide nanoparticle ink from Sofab Inks.

The work was carried out by Professor De Wolf's group at the KAUST Solar Center, which is well known in perovskite and tandem photovoltaics. This group was the first to achieve a certified efficiency >33% for perovskite/silicon tandems and a certified 31.2% blade-coated tandem. The group has also studied the limits of fullerene electron transport layers, including how repeated evaporation of C60 source material degrades device performance.

Sofab Inks has been awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant worth US$300,165 from the National Science Foundation. The award will fund development of liquid-processable tin oxide (SnO2) nanoparticle inks as an electron transport layer (ETL) for fullerene-free perovskite solar cells, designed to be affordable and compatible with industrial coating methods.

The project will focus on how ink formulation, thin-film properties, and processing conditions affect electron transport layer quality, with testing to evaluate film uniformity, electronic performance, device stability, and scalable deposition methods. The goal is to reduce manufacturing costs for perovskite modules and cut reliance on imported materials in the solar supply chain - building on the SnO2-based ETL work Sofab Inks has already been advancing commercially. Several prominent labs, including the Washington Clean Energy Test Beds and the National Lab of the Rockies, are listed as collaborators on the project.

US-based Sofab Inks has shared new stability data for Tinfab, its tin-oxide nanoparticle electron transport layer (ETL) ink. The results come from 85°C / 85% relative humidity (85/85) damp-heat testing of 30 × 30 cm P-I-N perovskite solar modules. In both data sets, the fullerene-free Tinfab modules kept more of their starting efficiency than fullerene-based reference modules over roughly 500 hours.

Sofab Inks collaborated with Alpha Precision Systems (APS) to perform these tests and fabricate the new sample modules. APS is a U.S.-based provider of slot-die coating systems, vacuum-drying systems, and turnkey solutions for thin-film manufacturing. Through its affiliated companies, APS also offers module prototyping services.

US-based Sofab Inks, a specialty materials developer for perovskite solar, has announced the completion of its $6 million seed funding round, led by UK-based deep tech investor Cloudberry Ventures, alongside what the company describes as a manufacturing reliability breakthrough for its fullerene-free electron transport material. 

Alongside the funding, Sofab says it has achieved a manufacturing reliability breakthrough, which it describes as solving "the single biggest obstacle standing between perovskite solar and mass-market adoption: reliability at scale." The company sees durability - rather than efficiency - as the remaining barrier to commercial deployment, and that the fullerene layer is where that problem originates.