SAVOSIL™ brings light to new markets

Light-emitting diodes (LED) generate a lot of light from little electricity, which is why they are increasingly used in a wide variety of lighting applications. They can already be found in the blinkers and tail lights of cars, in traffic lights, bedside lamps and table lamps, in scanners, and in the background lighting of flat-screen monitors. Evonik is now entering this market thanks to SAVOSIL™, the trademark of high-purity glass lenses produced by eco-friendly technology that can create virtually any shape, and that is behind the brand concept: “customized solution”. Cristal Materials Corporation, the joint venture Evonik formed specifically for the new product, has developed and produced the lenses since the end of 2009, and has created a rapidly evolving market share practically overnight.

Production of the new glass lenses is based on Evonik's own patented SiVARA™ sol-gel technology, which the company honored with the Innovation Award as early as 2005. In this process, an aqueous AEROSIL® dispersion is cast in a mould where it gels and afterwards is sintered in an oven where it turns in high-purity silica glass after several processing steps. Whether it is a tailored solution or complex design—creativity is allowed free reign. Evonik has produced the SAVOSIL™ product family from this technology, whose energy efficiency surpasses that of conventional glass production, and secured a leading position in the value-added chain, gearing its efforts to the end customer.

In addition to the LED, the developers have long set their sights on a new, future-oriented application: concentrating photovoltaics. This young technology is attractive for its high efficiency, because it uses lenses to bundle sunlight and focus it on solar cells. This not only strengthens the sunlight but also saves material in the production of the solar cells. Evonik is currently introducing SAVOSIL™ lenses to the market for concentrating photovoltaics.