Magnolia Solar Corp of Woburn, MA and Albany, NY, USA has entered into a letter of intent with Singapore-based Solar Silicon Resources Group Pte Ltd (SSRG) to acquire their assets and merge their business interests.
Magnolia's subsidiary Magnolia Solar Inc is developing and commercializing nanotechnology-based flexible thin-film solar cell technology for defense and commercial applications. The nanostructure technology can also be deposited on a variety of substrates, including glass, quartz, sapphire and flexible structures to reduce reflection losses for solar cells/panels, electronic displays, and handheld devices.
SSRG is a mining resource exploration and mining development company that processes raw high-purity rock quartz into high-purity quartz sand (HPQS), which is used in the solar, semiconductor, and high-end electronics industries.
"SSRG owns its raw material source and has significant experience and technical knowledge to manufacture HPQS," notes SSRG director Kevin Graham. "The proposed business combination with Magnolia Solar brings us the expertise in solar energy technologies and the capability to establish a processing plant in the USA," he adds.
The SSRG assets include the Lighthouse rock quartz mine in Australia. SSRG also owns extensive reserves of high-purity silica sand, which is used for HD/LCD TV screens.
SSRG has been conducting process development for manufacturing at its research center and test plant in Australia since 2009. "Quartz operations are entirely focused on expanding production to saleable quantities of HPQS crucible quartz sand," says Graham. "HPQS crucibles are used in the solar and semiconductor industries to grow crystals for wafers used in these industries. We have been shipping samples to potential customers for evaluation," he adds. "To become established as a commercial supplier of HPQS, most customers demand that the company have redundant refining operations. We plan to work with Magnolia Solar to build a new plant in the US and to expand the facility in Australia. We plan to add a refining plant in Asia as business demands."
At the completion of the transaction, SSRG shareholders will own 90% of the combined company while Magnolia shareholders will own 10%.
"The combined company offers an exciting opportunity to expand the business in the US and worldwide into materials and product supply for the solar and the semiconductor industries," believes Magnolia's president & CEO Dr Ashok K. Sood.
