Manufacturing

Allora Minerals has been busy, acquiring the remaining assets of OptiSolar, receiving preliminary approval to garner millions of Euro in grants for German projects, and getting shareholder approval to change its name to that of another company whose assets it's buying, EPOD Solar (ESI). The OptiSolar deal will bring the once-promising thin-film PV company's intellectual property and its manufacturing and R&D facilities in Northern California into ESI's portfolio.

DuPont and the U.S. Department of Energy will collaborate in a $9 million solar research program to develop ultrathin moisure-barrier material solutions for flexible thin-film photovoltaics. Some $3 million of the funding for the three-year effort comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with DuPont contributing the remaining $6 million.

Roth & Rau AG has acquired Ortner cleanroom logistic systems GmbH for an undisclosed sum in an effort to meet increasing demand from customers to support crystalline and thin-film equipment servicing, spare parts and other support activities. Ortner, based in Dresden, is a specialist in tool installations and automation company. Ortner’s existing management and skilled workforce will continue to operate the business as a subsidiary of Roth & Rau.

Researchers of hybrid solar cell fabrication at Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich have ordered an advanced sputtering tool from U.K.-based Surrey NanoSystems. The tool will be used in the creation of high-efficiency interconnection templates for organic materials, thereby greatly increasing the efficiency of the cells, according to LMU.