Did you know that the solar panel manufacturing process starts with sand?
in our windows and the screens of our smartphones and one of the raw materials of silicon chips in phones, computers, and other electronic devices.Sand consists of grains, and these grains can fill in gaps in cement particles, which is why it is mixed with gravel to produce concrete. Sand provides structural strength to concrete.
However, in solar panel manufacturing in particular, not just any sand will do. The sand used must have a high silicon dioxide content. This is important because silicon dioxide is the primary silicon source and is essential in wafer production, as we will explain below.To build solar panels, silica-rich sand must be extracted from natural deposits, such as sand mines or quarries, where the sand is often composed of quartz, a form of crystalline silica.
To obtain it, purified quartz sand is mixed with carbon-rich materials, such as coal or petroleum coke. After that, the mixture is exposed to a stream of chlorine gas at high temperatures, forming trichlorosilane . This process is called chlorination.Trichlorosilane, the result of chlorination, is further processed with distillation and purification techniques. In the distillation process, the trichlorosilane is heated to separate into its components.
The sliced wafers must undergo several surface treatment processes to eliminate any impurities, roughness, or flaws. This includes chemical etching to remove mechanical damage to the wafer surface, polishing with alumina abrasive in a lapping machine to improve the surface parallelism, and cleaning to ensure the wafer's surface is smooth, clean, and optimized for subsequent processing.or boron, to create different regions with different electrical properties.
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