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Symposium on Plasma Nano Science and Technology held during the 231st Meeting of the Electrochemical-Society (ECS), Louisiana, United States Of America, 28 May - 01 June 2017, vol.77, pp.2011-2016, (Full Text)
Nowadays, silicon is the most critical element in solar cells and/or solar chips. Silicon having 98 to 99% Si as being metallurgical grade, requires further refinement/purification processes such as zone refining [1,2] and/or Siemens process [3] to upgrade it for solar applications. A promising method, based on straightforward electrochemical reduction of oxides by FFC Cambridge Process [4], was adopted to form silicon from porous SiO2 pellets in molten CaCl2 and CaCl2-NaCl salt mixture [5]. It was reported that silicon powder contaminated by iron and nickel emanated from stainless steel cathode, consequently disqualified the product from solar applications. SiO2 pellets sintered at 1300 degrees C for 4 hours, were placed in between pure silicon wafer plates to defeat the contamination problem. Encouraging results indicated a reliable alternative method of direct solar grade silicon production for expanding solar energy field.