阅读说明：本技术 通风装置和真空生产设备 (Ventilation device and vacuum production equipment ) 是由 马可·弗勒纳 亚力山大·波迪克 于 2019-05-28 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明涉及一种通风装置和真空生产设备。本发明涉及的通风装置具有至少一个用于通风气体的、从通风气体源引至所述通风装置的输入管道并且具有至少一个阀门,其中,所述阀门为了通风能够打开,以使所述通风气体能够沿流入方向流入真空设备的腔室中。此外,本发明涉及的真空生产设备具有高产量要求并且具有至少一个腔室。因此本发明的目的是,提供一种简单的通风装置,借助该通风装置能够在很大程度上对真空生产设备的锁定室进行快速通风,且破裂情况较少。此目的通过一种通风装置得以实现,其特征在于,通风装置沿流入方向在阀门之前具有蓄压器且在阀门之后具有缓冲容器。(The invention relates to a ventilation device and vacuum production equipment. The invention relates to a ventilation device having at least one supply line for ventilation gas leading from a ventilation gas source to the ventilation device and having at least one valve, wherein the valve can be opened for ventilation in order to allow the ventilation gas to flow in an inflow direction into a chamber of a vacuum apparatus. Furthermore, the invention relates to a vacuum production plant having high throughput requirements and having at least one chamber. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a simple ventilation device, by means of which the lock chamber of a vacuum production installation can be ventilated rapidly to a large extent and with fewer breakages. This object is achieved by a ventilation device which is characterized in that the ventilation device has a pressure accumulator upstream of the valve and a buffer container downstream of the valve in the inflow direction.)

1. A ventilation device (1) having at least one supply line for ventilation gas from a ventilation gas source to the ventilation device (1) and having at least one valve (2), wherein the valve (2) can be opened for ventilation in order to allow the ventilation gas to flow into a chamber of a vacuum apparatus in an inflow direction, characterized in that the ventilation device (1) has a pressure accumulator (3) upstream of the valve (2) in the inflow direction and a buffer container (4) downstream of the valve (2).

2. The ventilation device (1) according to claim 1, characterized in that the ventilation device (1) has a ventilation duct (5) between the buffer container (4) and the chamber.

3. A ventilation device according to claim 2, characterized in that the open pressure equalizing tube (8) between the pressure accumulator and the buffer container has a larger flow cross section than the ventilation duct (5).

4. The ventilation device (1) according to claim 2 or 3, characterized in that the ventilation duct (5) has at least one branch (6a, 6b,6 c).

5. The ventilation device (1) according to claim 4, characterized in that the ventilation duct (5) terminates at least two connection flanges (7), wherein the connection flanges (7) are connectable with a ventilation input of the chamber.

6. The ventilation device (1) according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the buffer vessel (4) is smaller than the pressure accumulator (3).

7. The ventilation device (1) according to claim 6, characterized in that the pressure accumulator (3) has a volume of 10 liters and the buffer vessel (4) has a volume of 2 liters.

8. The ventilation device (1) according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the ventilation gas is obtained in the pressure accumulator (3) at a high pressure, in particular a pressure exceeding 5 bar.

9. The ventilation device (1) according to claim 1, characterized in that the buffer container (4) is an integrated part of the chamber to be ventilated.

10. The ventilation device (1) according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the valve (2) is an overflow valve.

11. Vacuum production plant having high throughput requirements and having at least one chamber, characterized in that it has a ventilation device (1) according to at least one of claims 1 to 9 at the at least one chamber.

12. The vacuum production apparatus of claim 11, wherein the vacuum production apparatus is an apparatus for manufacturing solar substrates at a throughput of more than 4000 per hour.

Technical Field

The invention relates to a ventilation device having at least one supply line for ventilation gas leading from a ventilation gas source to the ventilation device and having at least one valve, wherein the valve can be opened for ventilation in order to allow ventilation gas to flow in an inflow direction into a lock chamber of a vacuum apparatus. The invention further relates to a vacuum production system having high throughput requirements and at least one lock chamber.

Background

Vacuum apparatuses often have a locking portion, i.e. a locking chamber, for enabling loading and unloading of objects in the vacuum apparatus without opening the entire vacuum apparatus but only a small portion of the apparatus. Depending on the design of the device, either the locking part or the locking chamber is used for both loading and unloading, or separate loading and unloading chambers are used in the continuous production installation. Vacuum production plants have been used for various application purposes for decades. In recent years, photovoltaic power generation technology has achieved great economic benefits. Solar power plants based on solar cells have become the cheapest and cleanest source of electrical energy on earth due to the rapid and economical production of semiconductor-based solar cells. To further save costs, vacuum production equipment with high throughput of over 4000 solar substrates per hour is required in future solar cell production processes. With the ever increasing demand for production, i.e. in terms of processing speed and shorter production cycles, the various components of vacuum production plants have to be improved. Improvements only to the core area of vacuum production equipment, such as coating chambers, are not sufficient to meet the increasing demand. All other components of the vacuum production plant have to be modified according to increasing demands. The removal of the solar substrates must be carried out rapidly. As the loadlock is vented more quickly, cracking of the solar substrate should be avoided as much as possible.

In the prior art, various solutions for rapid ventilation of the lock chamber are known. DE 102011011279 a1 describes a lock chamber with guide plates arranged on its inner side for optimizing the flow of ventilation gas in the lock chamber. DE 102015117753 a1 proposes a planar ventilation of the lock chamber by means of a spray head or a perforated spray head. These solutions are expensive on the one hand and, on the other hand, when rapid ventilation is carried out with elevated ventilation pre-pressure, the solar substrate can still experience cracks despite the application of these gas flow influencing members. It is also possible to apply a regulating valve in order to achieve a rapid ventilation when the ventilation pressure rises. A disadvantage of control valves or proportional valves is the high outlay in terms of equipment and maintenance costs due to the movement of wear parts and the complicated calibration during the installation of such valves. Another possibility for ensuring high production speeds and correspondingly short production cycles is to install at least two lock chambers in series in a continuous production plant, as described, for example, in DE 102016107830 a1, or to provide a plurality of lock chambers in a single-ended plant. The installation of additional lock chambers is expensive and also leads to correspondingly high subsequent costs due to the larger footprint of the vacuum production equipment.

Disclosure of Invention

The object of the present invention is therefore to provide a simple venting device with which the lock chamber of a vacuum production system can be rapidly vented to a large extent without the substrate breaking.

This object is achieved by a ventilation device having a pressure accumulator upstream of a valve and a buffer container downstream of the valve in the inflow direction.

The ventilation device according to the invention is very simple to construct from a small number of inexpensive standard parts. During the cyclic operation of the lock chamber, the pressure accumulator is able to supply a high pressure to the ventilation gas during the ventilation step. This is a good prerequisite for rapid ventilation. In a subsequent evacuation step of the downstream lock chamber or of the additionally ventilated chamber, the pressure accumulator can be filled up to a defined ventilation pressure for the next ventilation step. The valve does not require a specific proportional valve or a regulating valve, and a simple on-off valve is sufficient. The buffer container is arranged downstream of the valve in the inflow direction and is therefore connected to the evacuated, downstream lock chamber when the valve is closed. After opening the valve, the pressure in the buffer volume slowly rises. An initial pressure surge in the lock chamber when opening the valve is thus avoided. The buffer volume in the buffer container avoids this initially high flow speed because the inflow speed of the ventilation gas into the locking chamber is first of all regulated as a function of the smaller pressure difference between the buffer container and the locking chamber, because the maximum pressure difference between the ventilation pre-pressure and the internal pressure of the locking portion when the valve is opened is thus initially high. As the buffer container fills, the pressure difference with respect to the chamber to be ventilated increases. After the pressure compensation or dynamic pressure equalization between the pressure accumulator and the buffer vessel has been established, rapid venting takes place by means of a high venting pre-pressure. In a few cases, the time gained in venting exceeds the short delay that can occur when evacuating the buffer volume and the chamber connected to the buffer volume. When additional valves and corresponding lines are used, the buffer vessel can temporarily additionally be used as a vacuum buffer vessel for rapid evacuation. The ventilation gas can be air, dried or cleaned air, nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor or a gas or gas mixture otherwise suitable for ventilation purposes.

The ventilation device can have a ventilation duct between the buffer container and the lock chamber. The ventilation air can be transported to the desired location at low cost through the tube of the ventilation duct. In a further variant of the ventilation device according to the invention, channels in the spray head, for example in the lock chamber, can be used for gas distribution. The buffer container can also be mounted directly on the ventilation inlet, or small buffer containers can be mounted on each of the ventilation inlets.

A pressure equalizing tube can be installed between the pressure accumulator and the buffer container, wherein the pressure equalizing tube has a larger flow cross section when open than the ventilation duct. The pressure compensation between the pressure accumulator and the buffer vessel can be achieved rapidly by means of the pressure equalizing tube, so that the aim of rapid ventilation of the locking section can be achieved. Alternatively, the pressure accumulator, the valve and the buffer vessel can also be mounted directly on one another.

The ventilation duct can have at least one branch. Ventilation of the locking portion should be carried out quickly, but a strong flow in the locking portion is undesirable, since this may damage the substrate and raise particles. By distributing the ventilation gas flow to two or more ventilation inputs, the ventilation gas flow can be reduced by a divisor of 2 or more than 2, and the gas flow in the locking section as a whole can advantageously be adjusted. In this case, a simple opening can also be used locally as a gas inlet in the ventilated chamber. Advantageously, the distribution of the ventilation gas can also be effected in the locking portion by means of branched pipes or by another means.

The ventilation duct can terminate at least two connection flanges, wherein these connection flanges can be connected to the ventilation input of the lock chamber. The flange can be opened quickly and easily when maintenance work is performed. If no or little maintenance is required, the ventilation duct can also be permanently mounted on the lock chamber without an intermediate flange.

The buffer vessel can be smaller than the pressure accumulator. The locking portion can for example have a volume of 40 litres. The accumulator can have a volume of 10 litres and the buffer vessel a volume of 2 litres. The buffer vessel is small and the delay of ventilation and evacuation is small. However, the buffer container must also have a sufficiently large size in order to achieve the desired buffer effect after the valve has been opened, i.e. to avoid damage to the substrates due to an excessive gas flow during ventilation. The optimal size of the buffer vessel depends on a number of factors and can be determined by the expert on an individual basis. The buffer vessel can be approximately 1/5 the size of the accumulator.

The ventilation gas can be obtained at high pressure in the pressure accumulator, in particular at pressures of more than 5 bar. For the purpose of ventilating the pressure accumulator, a pre-pressure of 5.8bar can be set, so that more gas is stored in the pressure accumulator than is necessary for the ventilation. The magnitude of the pre-pressure depends on the type of ventilation gas used, for example on whether the air has to be compressed by a compressor or whether the pressure gas is already provided in the form of compressed gas by a bomb. When the pre-pressing strength is higher, a smaller pressure accumulator is enough; when the pre-pressure strength is low, a large accumulator is required. The available installation space is also a criterion for determining the pre-pressure and the size of the pressure accumulator. In defining the pre-pressure, it is also possible to take into account the legal requirements to be complied with and the different costs for different pressure classes of the pressure vessel.

In a variant of the ventilation device according to the invention, the buffer container is an integral part of the locking chamber to be ventilated. For example, if the locking chamber is made of a solid aluminum block by milling, the wall of the subsequent buffer container can be held upright during milling. The buffer vessel can then be completed by adding a lid. Such an integrated buffer container can be provided in a material and space saving manner.

The valve can be a relief valve. The relief valve is a valve that releases a large relief cross section quickly. The overflow valve has simple structure, relatively low cost and long service life. The valve can take various forms of straight-through, angle, gate or regulating valves, depending on the specific requirements to be met.

The object of the invention is also achieved by a vacuum production system having a high throughput requirement, having at least one lock chamber, having at least one ventilation device according to the invention on at least one chamber.

The vacuum production apparatus is constructed in different ways. For example, a single-ended configuration is employed in which the substrate to be processed is loaded in and out of one end of the apparatus (i.e., in the lock). In this case, the locking portion is a load-and-unload chamber. Further vacuum production plants are designed as so-called line-type or continuous production plants, in which substrates are loaded into a load-in chamber in one direction and are unloaded from a load-out chamber located at the other end of the line-type production plant. All lock chambers must be periodically vented and evacuated. Particularly at simple load-out chambers and merged load-in and load-out chambers, gentle and rapid ventilation by means of the ventilation device according to the invention is required to avoid damage to delicate substrates (e.g. solar substrates) when ventilating these chambers. In a few cases, it is also necessary to ventilate a further chamber different from the lock chamber and can be realized by at least one ventilation device according to the invention. It is also possible to mount two or more ventilation devices according to the invention on the lock chamber of the vacuum production installation according to the invention in order to provide ventilation gas in the lock chamber when required.

The vacuum production apparatus according to the present invention can be an apparatus for manufacturing solar substrates with a throughput of more than 4000 per hour. The production of solar cells is currently growing at a rate of about 30% per year, in accordance with the production of 100GW solar cells produced annually worldwide in 2017. At the same time, the production cost per solar cell is further reduced. In such an environment, only such vacuum production facilities may have a place in the market: such vacuum production equipment meets the growing demands of solar cell manufacturers by high throughput of, for example, 4000 or 6000 solar substrates per hour, and each finished solar cell has a sufficiently low unit cost. Optimized ventilation times can help to reduce costs associated with annual production of the order of 100GW quantities of photovoltaic solar energy.

The person skilled in the art can combine the proposed options and configurations of the invention with one another at his discretion, even if a specific combination is not specifically set forth herein. The design of one option of the ventilation device is also suitable for the corresponding option of the vacuum production plant. The randomly described options or features of the present invention should not be misinterpreted as mandatory combinations of features.

Drawings

The invention is further illustrated below with reference to fig. 1, in which:

Fig. 1 shows two ventilation devices according to the invention.

Detailed Description

Fig. 1 shows in a perspective view two venting devices 1 according to the invention for mounting on a lock chamber of a vacuum production installation according to the invention. Each ventilation device 1 has a valve 2 between the pressure accumulator 3 and the buffer vessel 4, wherein the valve 2 is connected in the illustrated embodiment to a pressure equalizing pipe 8. In a further embodiment, not shown, the valve 2 is mounted directly at the output of the pressure accumulator 3 or at the input of the buffer vessel 4.

The ventilation gas is conducted via the ventilation line 5 from the outlet end of the buffer container 4 to a connecting flange 7, which is detachably connected to a locking chamber, not shown. In the embodiment shown, three branches 6a,6b,6c are connected into the ventilation duct 5, so that the ventilation gas is distributed from one output end of the buffer container 4 to four flanges. However, the associated load lock does not have only four, but eight inputs for ventilation gas. In the exemplary embodiment shown, the second ventilation device 1, which is of substantially identical design to the first ventilation device but is of symmetrical design, is connected to the remaining four inlets for ventilation gas on the load chamber. The two ventilators 1 are each supplied with ventilation gas via a ventilation gas supply line, not shown, via a ventilation gas supply line via a ventilation gas supply 9.

List of reference numerals

1 ventilating device

2 valve

3 pressure accumulator

4 buffer container

5 ventilating duct

6a,6b,6c branch of ventilation duct

7 connecting flange

8 pressure equalizing pipe

9 pressure gas input