Purification of solar grade silicon using electromagnetic field
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Date
2010
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Publisher
IEEE
Abstract
Non-metallic particles and the metallic impurity elements in the solar cell silicon have a strong detrimental effect on the conversion efficiency of the solar cell. Removing these impurities is one of the important tasks for silicon refining. The current paper proposed a new approach to purify silicon - electromagnetic (EM) separation. Since the non-metallic particles and the metallic impurity elements are non- or less-conductive while the molten silicon is well conductive, under EM field, the Lorenz force will push the particles to the boundary layer, thus separate these inclusions. In the current study, a high frequency EM field was imposed on the silicon melt in laboratory scale experiments with a frequency of 60 kHz and 15.0 A current, the non-conductive SiC particles were successfully pushed to the boundary layer close to the crucible wall.
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Keywords
EM field, High frequency, Lorenz forces, Metallic impurity, Molten silicon
Citation
Anping Dong; Damoah, L.N.W.; Lifeng Zhang; Hui Zhu; "Purification of solar grade silicon using electromagnetic field”, in Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2010 35th IEEE, pp.002266-002269, doi: 10.1109/PVSC.2010.5617131