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Removal of Impurities from Metallurgical Grade Silicon During Ga-Si Solvent Refining

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Abstract

Purification of metallurgical grade silicon (MG-Si), using gallium as the impurity getter has been investigated. The technique involves growing Si dendrites from an alloy of MG-Si with Ga, followed by their separation by acid leaching. The morphologies of impurity phases in the MG-Si and the Ga-Si alloy were investigated during the solvent refining process. Effective segregation ratios of B and P in the Ga-Si system were calculated. Most metallic impurities formed silicides, such as Si-Fe-Ga-Mn or Si-Fe-Ga impurity phases, which segregated to the grain boundaries of Si or into the Ga phase during the Ga-Si solvent refining process. After purification, the refined Si is plate-like with < 111 > crystallographic orientation, and the removal fraction of B and P was 83.28 % and 14.84 % respectively when the Si proportion was 25 % in the Ga-Si alloy. The segregation ratios of B and P were determined to be 0.15 and 0.83 when the solid fraction of Si was 0.25. The effective removal of B and P by a solidification refining process with a Ga-Si melt is clarified.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Novel Thin Film Solar Cells, Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, Hefei, 230031, People’s Republic of China

    Jingwei Li, Boyuan Ban, Yanlei Li, Taotao Zhang & Jian Chen

  2. School of Engineering and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaolong Bai

Authors
  1. Jingwei Li
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  2. Boyuan Ban
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  3. Yanlei Li
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  4. Xiaolong Bai
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  5. Taotao Zhang
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  6. Jian Chen
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Correspondence to Jian Chen.

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Li, J., Ban, B., Li, Y. et al. Removal of Impurities from Metallurgical Grade Silicon During Ga-Si Solvent Refining. Silicon 9, 77–83 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-014-9269-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-014-9269-0

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