SCI Gets Grant to Make Products Used in Solar Panels

SCI Engineered Materials Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, a manufacturer of ceramics and metals for advanced applications in the physical vapor deposition industry, announced that it has been awarded a $708,715 grant from the Ohio Department of Development, subject to State of Ohio Controlling Board approval. This grant, under the state's Third Frontier Advanced Energy Program, will allow the company to is commercialize technologies (rotatable sputtering targets) for the production of transparent conductive oxide-coated glass used in thin-film photovoltaic solar panels. Rotatable ceramic sputtering targets can be used in production processes involving glass, stainless, or plastic substrates, making them applicable for second-generation thin film and third-generation dye cells. Optimizing the composition of the coating using these targets will allow manufacturers to improve the efficiency of photovoltaic modules.