PPG Industries has introduced a new product, Solarphire AR, that maximizes solar energy transmission to solar-collecting photovoltaic cells. The proprietary anti-reflective coating of Solarphire AR (anti-reflective) glass facilitates the efficient conversion of solar light into energy. In fact, in thicknesses of 3.2mm, Solarphire AR glass has a solar-weighted transmittance of more than 93% & is thus one of the industry's most transmissive glass products. Solarphire AR is PPG's most recent innovation in the development of stacked, thin-film coatings for glass. In 1983, PPG commercialized the world's first coated low-emissivity (low-E) glass. Moreover, the company has continued to develop thin-film coating technology, recently resulting in the debut of Solarban 70XL glass, the architectural industry's first magnetron sputterering vacuum deposition (MSVD), triple-silver-coated, low-E glass. At present, the company is now concentrating its thin-film coating efforts on the production of solar energy.
