Electrochemical slag-metal reaction for silicon production

Silicon is an important semiconducting and photovoltaic material. It is also widely used for chemical and metallurgical applications. The rapid growth in the demand of solar photovoltaic (PV) cell results in the shortage of solar-grade (SOG) silicon feedstock. Expensive scrap electronic grade (EG) silicon (99.9999999% Si) is commonly used as the raw material to produce SOG-Si (99.9999% Si). Many researchers have reported that relatively inexpensive metallurgical grade (MG) silicon (98-99% Si) can be used as an alternative raw material for refining of MG-silicon to produce SOG-Si.