Dyesol, Umicore Announce Alliance in Dye Solar Cells

Dyesol Limited and Umicore AG & Co. KG have signed a letter of intent and entered negotiations to establish a business alliance covering the development, production and marketing of high quality, industrial scale Ruthenium-based dyes, as well as other potentially relevant metal-based chemicals, for the global dye solar cell (DSC) market. This is the next step in Dyesol’s strategy to partner with global corporations for commercialization of DSC technology. This is also complementary to Umicore’s focus on providing metal-based materials and solutions for production of green energy.

Umicore, with sales of €1.7 billion in 2009 (€6.9 billion, including metals trading), is a global materials technology group and a world leader in precious metals chemistry. Dyesol is the global leader in DSC technology.

The scope of the collaboration will cover joint marketing, research and development, commercial scale production and metal supply and recovery. The LOI targets signing a definitive agreement by the end of calendar 2010.

As with the collaboration for development of electrolytes with Merck, Dyesol has now found a reliable supply partner for the large scale manufacturing of high quality dyes, a crucial component of the DSC structure pioneered by Professor Michael Graetzel of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland. Professor Graetzel was awarded the Millennium Prize, the world’s largest technology prize, for his continuing work in DSC in 2010.

“The partnership with Umicore is an important step in establishing a robust supply chain for Dyesol and its multi-national partners,” Richard Caldwell, executive chairman of Dyesol, said. “We once again ally ourselves with a world leader, with deep technological understanding and excellent manufacturing skills. The LOI covers Umicore providing scale and consistency to large volumes of dye while Dyesol will be able to remain focused on our mission: to establish partnerships with global market leaders where our integrated understanding of the DSC adds significant value to our partners’ core product lines resulting in high volume sales of DSC materials.”

“Together with Dyesol we can present a formidable team,” Dr. Matthias Grehl, Umicore’s vice president BU Precious Metals Chemistry, said. “Dyesol’s holistic understanding of DSC and cutting edge DSC research will point the way to new metal-based dye markets. Umicore’s scale-up and manufacturing expertise can ensure that consistent quality and low cost at high volumes are achieved quickly.”