Tecnologia em Metalurgia, Materiais e Mineração (Mar 2015)

CARBON REMOVAL FROM METALLIC SILICON BY CARBIDE SETTLING FOR SOLAR GRADE SILICON PRODUCTION

  • Tiago Ramos Ribeiro,
  • Marcelo de Aquino Martorano,
  • João Batista Ferreira Neto

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4322/tmm.2013.049
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 4
pp. 303 – 310

Abstract

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The use of solar energy is growing sharply in the past years. The most used material for solar cells is high-purity silicon produced by refining low-purity silicon. With the increasing demand for photovoltaic components, new refining processes have been investigated. Carbon is one of the impurities to be removed and one possible removing technique is based on the settling of silicon carbide particles. Settling tests were carried out at 1,500°C during one and six hours. Results show that differences in settling time do not affect carbon removal significantly and that the carbon contents after settling are still higher than that required by standards for solar grade silicon (43 ppm). Results from this work and from literature show that settling is not a feasible processing step for carbon removal to the level needed for photovoltaic applications.

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