Purified silicon production system
Method and apparatus for producing purified bulk silicon from highly impure metallurgical-grade silicon source material at atmospheric pressure. Method involves: (1) initially reacting iodine and metallurgical-grade silicon to create silicon tetraiodide and impurity iodide byproducts in a cold-wall reactor chamber; (2) isolating silicon tetraiodide from the impurity iodide byproducts and purifying it by distillation in a distillation chamber; and (3) transferring the purified silicon tetraiodide back to the cold-wall reactor chamber, reacting it with additional iodine and metallurgical-grade silicon to produce silicon diiodide and depositing the silicon diiodide onto a substrate within the cold-wall reactor chamber. The two chambers are at atmospheric pressure and the system is open to allow the introduction of additional source material and to remove and replace finished substrates.
- Research Organization:
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC36-99GO10337
- Assignee:
- Midwest Research Institute (Kansas City, MO)
- Patent Number(s):
- 6,712,908
- Application Number:
- 10/243,503
- OSTI ID:
- 1174788
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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