Supercritical Fluid Deposition of Chromium on Copper (Navolta)

Brian’s prior company, Navolta (no longer operating), studied the use of a supercritical fluid deposition technique to coat copper flake with chromium under a NSF STTR grant with UMass Amherst. The goal of this project was to prevent oxidation of copper flake used in conductive inks without decreasing the overall conductivity to make it a suitable replacement for silver conductive paste used in solar panel manufacturing.

The project was completed successfully in 2015, with copper showing no oxidation at 500°C. However, the coating process and precursors ended up costing too much and there was no route to commercialization. As such the project and company were shut down smoothly rather than attempting to pursue a Phase II award. It is good not to dedicate years to a project after you have proven it will not be cost effective!

Silver Replacement for Conductive Inks, Final Report, Award IIP-1346442

This link goes to the only publicly released version of the final STTR project report, and is being released here in a non-confidential form for future reference. The Navolta website no longer exists and the NSF does not publish these detailed final reports.