Another Solar Materials Agreement Ends For Evonik

Evonik Industries is being compensated for the end of a second photo­voltaic materials manufacturing pact. Evonik and the industrial gases company Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corp. ended a monosilane production venture in Yokkaichi, Japan, on Sept. 30. Evonik says it will receive around $250 million from a settlement with TNSC over the termination of the venture. The Japanese firm enlisted Evonik in 2009 to capitalize on then-booming demand for monosilane, or SiH₄, as a raw material for thin-film photovoltaic panels and liquid-crystal displays. The companies opened the monosilane plant in September 2011, but by then, TNSC says, the target markets had fallen sharply in Japan. Similarly, last month Evonik and the polysilicon maker MEMC Electronic Materials resolved a dispute related to Evonik’s supply of trichlorosilane (TCS) to MEMC’s now-idle polysilicon plant in Merano, Italy. Under the settlement, MEMC will pay Evonik $90 million and acquire Evonik’s TCS plant on the site.