DuPont (Wilmington, Del.) will soon begin construction on a research center in Hong Kong and a manufacturing facility in Shenzhen, China to support its efforts in the solar-cell materials market.

The company is a supplier of materials primarily serving the crystalline silicon cell and module markets. The expansions in Hong Kong and Shenzhen will provide new offerings to serve the amorphous silicon thin-film market.

Separately, DuPont and Japan's Dainippon Screen Manufacturing Co. Ltd. have formed a strategic alliance to develop integrated manufacturing equipment for printed organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays.

DuPont brings to the alliance its small molecule-based OLED solution materials and proprietary process technology. Dainippon Screen has developed a printing technology, called nozzle printing, in which the OLED materials can be printed at a high speed.

Another company, Honeywell Specialty Materials (Morristown, N.J.), has developed a new material to protect photovoltaic solar cells in tough environments. The new product, called Honeywell PowerShield PV325, is designed to withstand the electrical load produced by modules.

Honeywell PowerShield was developed primarily for rigid PV modules. The company's reflective white material is based on Honeywell's high-performance barrier film technology.

''Honeywell PowerShield has a five-layer design that includes two outer protective layers based on ethylene-chlorotrifluoroethylene (ECTFE) fluoropolymer film and a core polyethylene terephthalate (PET) layer, as well as two inner bonding layers of proprietary adhesive material,'' according to the company. ''It will provide PV module manufacturers with an alternative to poly-vinyl fluoride backing materials.''