Octillion claims solar glass progress

Shares of Vancouver-based Octillion (Pink Sheets: OCTL) are up almost 6% today after announcing that early prototypes of its nanotech-based photovoltaic glass windows are promising.

Company scientists say they have engineered and assembled a mechanically stable, see-through developmental prototype, which achieves optically active down-conversion and displays good electrical properties with no electrical shorts.

“Our ability to produce a developmental prototype which remains see-through while displaying favorable electrical properties, marks a significant breakthrough in development of a working prototype of our ‘NanoPower Windows,’ capable of generating electricity from sunlight without losing significant transparency,” said Harmel S. Rayat, President and CEO of Octillion and a venture capitalist by trade.

The company did not issue any efficiency data in its announcement, but Rayat told the Cleantech Group it would be forthcoming.

"At some point in time we are going to come up with efficiency numbers," he said, pointing to future milestones the company is targeting.

Octillion researchers stacked silicon nanoparticles between ultra-thin films of metal onto a glass substrate. Preliminary tests have shown that this stack is mechanically stable and of even thickness, the company said.

It claimed that tests for optical characterization have demonstrated that the model is a high-quality see-through architecture, important to maintaining maximum transparency of the finished commercial product.

Octillion uses a proprietary, patent-protected spray coating of a silicon nanoparticle film, which is fluorescent and able to convert the sun’s energy into electricity.

It says its silicon nanoparticle film is able to successfully convert high energy photons into lower energy photons, optimizing electrical conversion by preventing high energy photons from being unnecessarily wasted through conversion into heat.

Octillion's goal is to enable existing home and office glass windows to generate electricity from solar energy without losing significant transparency or requiring major changes in manufacturing infrastructure.

The company recently raised $500,000 CDN in a private placement (details in Two biofuel IPOs pending.)

Solar glass is in its infancy. A number of companies, including Sharp Solar, Scheuten Solar, XsunX, Canadian Solar and others already offer, or are pursuing it, with different approaches to Octillion.

Octillion is trading this morning at $1.11, up $.06—a gain of 5.71 percent at press time.

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