Charcoal for solar cell silicon

Research scientists at SINTEF Materials and Chemistry are well on the way to purifying wood shavings and charcoal enough to satisfy the requirements for raw materials for the silicon used in solar cells. Carbon is part of the silicon production process, and it needs to be extremely pure for the production of high-grade silicon for solar cells. It is particularly important to keep the content of phosphorus and boron as low as possible. The researchers have used a specially designed high-pressure plant at SINTEF to run a series of pilot trials to purify wood shavings and charcoal. So far the results have been promising.