Shinko Chemical Quadruples 99.99% Selenium Output Capacity

Osaka based rare metal compound maker, Shinko Chemical expands high purity selenium output capacity to 4 times at annual 80 tonnes. The firm expanded refining facility at Amagasaki plant in Hyogo for around 400 million yen with expectation higher demand for next generation copper-indium-gallium-selenium solar battery. The firm tries to increase the metal with 99.99% or more purity stably.

The firm froze the expansion plan after the Lehman shock. The firm restarted the plan last year to build additional plant building and wet refining facility. The firm started the operation after the approval from local authority.

The firm had made annual 20 tonnes of product with 99.99% or more purity through distilling process of 100 tonnes of selenium with 99.9% purity. With the new capacity, the firm can make 80 tonnes of high purity products including 20 tonnes of output capacity for product with 99.999% purity.

The firm is sole domestic maker with integrated process from smelting, recycling to compound production. The firm uses crude selenium from copper smelters and used photoconductor drum of copy machine as the raw material. The firm studies new source of the raw materials due to tight supply of the recycling material under higher demand for manganese smelting in China.