SunSi Energies, a Chinese specialty chemical provider to the solar industry, recently announced that Russia-based Nitol Solar, one of the world's largest polysilicon producers, has purchased 117 metric tons of trichlorosilane (TCS) from SunSi's Wendeng facility located in Weihai City, China.

TCS is a chemical primarily used in the production of polysilicon, which is an essential raw material in the production of solar cells for PV panels that convert sunlight to electricity. TCS is considered to be the first product in the solar PV value chain before polysilicon, and is also the principal source of ultrapure silicon in the semiconductor industry.

This initial order represents a significant milestone for SunSi as Nitol Solar becomes SunSi's first customer outside of China to purchase TCS.  

SunSi is undergoing a production capacity expansion at its Wendeng, China manufacturing facility, to support orders from companies such as Nitol and larger orders from existing clients in China. SunSi expects to receive additional orders from companies outside of China.
Management is in discussions with companies based in the U.S., Europe, and Taiwan, who are interested in purchasing TCS to be shipped to locations outside of China.

David Natan, SunSi Energies' Chief Executive Officer, said, "We are very pleased to ship this order to a quality company such as Nitol. This level of activity is indicative of the trend that we are seeing in the industry with large polysilicon producers outsourcing a portion of their TCS production. Rather than investing large amounts of capital to build new capacity to manufacture TCS, Tier I and Tier II polysilicon makers are starting to outsource some of their TCS production to specialty chemical manufacturers such as SunSi who produce high purity TCS."