Grant Supports Development of Plastic Photovoltaics

Konarka Technologies, a company that develops and commercializes photovoltaic Power Plastic, was awarded a $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant, a second awarded to Konarka this year, will fund research to gain higher performance from novel nano-engineered and polymer materials that conduct electricity.

Konarka has developed flexible, lightweight Power Plastic that serves as a low-cost embedded source of renewable power. Moving forward, both performance and efficiency of Power Plastic materials will be greatly improved through additional research and development efforts, such as those conducted as a result of this NSF Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project. The project leverages the existing development partnership between Konarka and Evident Technologies to develop high-efficiency, low-cost materials in new form factors. The combined effort is a quantum dot-based Power Plastic.