Toyo Engineering Wins Engineering Contract for Construction of Evonik's Japanese Monosilane Gas Plant

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The engineering, procurement and construction contract for the construction of a monosilane gas plant in Yokkaichi, Japan, has been awarded to Toyo Engineering Corporation (TYO:6330) (Tokyo, Japan). The plant will be built for Evonik Monosilane Japan Company Limited, the regional subsidiary of the Evonik Industries AG Group (Essen, Germany), and its partner, Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation (TYO:4091) (TNSC) (Tokyo). The two companies will make a combined investment of around $176 million in the new plant.

Toyo is expected to begin construction of the new plant this year, and the plant is expected to begin production in 2011. When fully operational, the plant will have a production capacity of 1,000 tons per year of monosilane gas. The facility will be located about 400 kilometers south of Tokyo.

In addition to monosilane gas, the plant also will produce Aerosil from silicon tetrachloride, a byproduct in the production of monosilane. Aerosil is a fumed silica product first developed by Evonik in 1942, when the company was known as Degussa AG, and is used extensively in the production of plastics, adhesives, lacquers and sealants.

Evonik will supply monosilane to TNSC under a long-term agreement. TNSC is a distributor of specialty and industrial gases, and supplies monosilane to major companies within the electronics industry.

Monosilane is a colorless gas and is also known also as silicon tetrahydride. It is an important product used in the production of solar photovoltaic cells, as it can be used to deposit a thin layer of silicon on glass and other surfaces. The substance is also used in the electronics industry and even has been put forward as a possible fuel for engines capable of operating on Mars, as the gas is capable of combustion using carbon dioxide as an oxidizer.

Evonik is already a world leader in the production of chlorosilanes and is a significant producer of monosilane. With the global interest in renewable energy, in particular solar energy, production of monosilane seems to have a promising future. Some forecasts predict that the demand for monosilane will grow by an average of 20% annually until 2020.

The Yokkaichi plant will be Evonik's first monosilane plant outside Europe. The firm currently operates a polycrystalline solar silicon plant at Rheinfelden in Germany in a 51:49 joint venture with SolarWorld AG (ETR:SWV) (Bonn, Germany). The joint venture is named Joint Solar Silicon.

The Rheinfelden plant was opened in August 2008 and contains a monosilane plant, the output of which is used to manufacture solar silicon. Initial output from the plant is 850 tons per year of solar silicon. SolarWorld, together with university scientists, has developed technologies to enable the production of solar silicon using up to 90% less energy compared with conventional methods.

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