A new "Taiwan first"?
Mark Wu explains that the Siemens process, in contrast, uses silica sand and requires a huge amount of chlorine gas in the manufacturing process to produce trichlorosilane. This not only uses up a lot of electricity, there is high risk of explosion, not to mention that trichlorosilane is highly corrosive. If there were an industrial accident, an area ten kilometers in radius might be affected. "This is the reason," concludes Wu, "why several big firms like Formosa Plastics and China Petroleum that have been evaluating entering the silicon crystal industry for many years now have kept putting off taking any action."
"In contrast," Wu states, "the fluorosilicate that we use is not explosive, so it is very safe. Moreover, the second great thing about it is that it is reclaimed from waste." Every year mainland China's phosphate fertilizer industry produces about 3 million metric tons of wastewater. Only about 20 tons are recycled; the rest is dumped into rivers. In the future, because the reuse value will greatly increase, the recycling rate will certainly go up greatly. Moreover, the products made from this recycled raw material are also "green," which means multiple benefits for humankind and the planet. Wu is confident that after Sun Materials gets rolling with mass production, its process will steadily replace the Siemens process as the market mainstream.
Sun Materials general manager Wayne Chang has stated that the first plant, with an annual production capacity of 3500 metric tons, is expected to be completed by July or August of 2009. In fact, early in 2009, small-scale production already began-in collaboration with the affiliated enterprise Enerage, also located in the Letzer Industrial Park-of samples to be provided to customers, and orders are being accepted. In the future Sun Materials expects to build six factories with total annual production volume as high as 20,000 tons, enough to supply the needs of the entire mid- and downstream solar power industry in all of Taiwan.
However, right now the academic and business communities are still taking a wait-and-see attitude towards the novel process announced by Sun Materials. Lan Chung-wen guesses that Sun Materials has probably adapted its process from a 1982 patent of the Stanford Research Institute. He adds that Taiwan has already had companies produce samples using the SRI patent, and quality was acceptable, but they got hung up on the problem of handling liquid sodium, and environmental impact assessments remain a problem. To succeed with mass production, yield rate and quality control and will be critical. Moreover, because right now this manufacturing process is not being used anywhere in the world for making high-purity silicon crystals, there are no relevant laws or regulations at all, and chemical industry plants all have to pass environmental impact assessments and other obstacles. The process for setting up a factory of this nature can be quite time-consuming, and may not be as easy as the company imagines.
With regard to these issues, Sun Materials spokesperson Allan Kuang says that although their technology is similar to SRI's in that both have their origins in the satellite program of the USA's National Aeronautics and Space Administration, this is not a case of technology transfer, but of an independently owned patent. Moreover, the byproducts of their "reductive combustion" process can be recycled, and will not produce pollution. Finally, because the Letzer Industrial Park has 32 review items for polluting industries, the environmental barrier is very high, so would it have been possible for Sun Materials to get admission to Letzer so smoothly if there were genuine environmental concerns?
Will the two dark horses of Letzer investing in critical elements of solar power development-Sun Materials in upstream materials production and Sunrise in midstream solar cell technology-produce amazing results out there in Yilan? Will they be able to lower production costs and change the widespread view that solar energy is itself highly energy-consuming and discouragingly expensive? Although there are still many variables, those in charge emanate tremendous confidence. Observers estimate that we will have some results by which to judge within a year or two.
In any case, of one thing we can be certain: The Letzer Industrial Park now has nine firms working in various sectors of the solar power industry, occupying more than 40 hectares of land. Such a concentration will attract talented people, and if close cooperation can be launched with academic institutes, R&D capacity will be impressive. Mutual support and cooperation among suppliers will also make costs more competitive. All things considered, wherever it may lead, Taiwan's "green energy" development is taking a giant step forward.
A polycrystalline silicon sample recently produced by Sun Materials (in the plastic bag at back left); the "head" and "tail" of a silicon ingot following crystal growth (foreground); and a solar cell manufactured using a wafer cut from the central segment of the ingot (back right).
In recent years Taiwan's solar energy industry has been on fire, with annual production volume nearing NT$100 billion. But behind the success there is the looming challenge of developing exclusive technologies. Pictured below is part of Sunrise Global Solar Energy's Yilan factory.
Will the concentration of solar energy firms at the Letzer Industrial Park allow this long-neglected industrial zone on the Lanyang Plain to finally find its place in the sun?
The "high energy hydrogen atomic beam cyclone reductive combustion process" invented by Sun Materials technology chief Mark Wu uses sodium fluorosilicate recovered from fertilizer wastewater to produce polycrystalline silicon, which saves on costs and is environmentally friendly.