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- Title
High-Purity Composite Briquette for Direct UMG-Si Production in Arc Furnaces.
- Authors
Perruchoud, Raymond; Fischer, Jean-Claude
- Abstract
In metallurgical grade Si (MG-Si), the coal (B) and charcoal (P) contents are on average above 30 ppm as the carbon reduction materials used in the arc furnace are either rich in B or in P. A decrease of both impurities by a factor of 3 using purer raw materials would allow for the direct production of the upgraded metallurgical grade (UMG).This would significantly improve the efficiency of the resulting photovoltaic (PV) cells made with the refined solar grade silicon (SoG-Si) or massively decrease the costs of Si purification by shortening the number of steps needed for reaching B and P contents below 1 ppm requested for the SoG-Si used for the PV cells. A composite C/SiO 2 briquette fulfilling the purity targets for the direct production of UMG-Si in the arc furnace was developed. The composite contains several carbon materials with different levels of reactivities and quartz sand. The raw materials aspects, the paste and briquette preparation, as well as the final carbonization step are discussed. The finished briquettes are free of volatiles and are mechanically and thermally very stable, thus, ensuring stable arc furnace charges with minimum losses of dust and SiO gas. Semi-industrial trials including the downstream purification steps for the production of SoG-Si by a metallurgical low-cost route are contemplated.
- Subjects
METALLURGICAL analysis; CHARCOAL; ARC furnaces; RAW materials; PHOTOVOLTAIC cells
- Publication
JOM: The Journal of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS), 2013, Vol 65, Issue 12, p1744
- ISSN
1047-4838
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11837-013-0775-0