Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research
5 years ago

Waste Photovoltaic Panels for Ultrapure Silicon and Hydrogen through the Low-Temperature Magnesium Silicide

Waste Photovoltaic Panels for Ultrapure Silicon and Hydrogen through the Low-Temperature Magnesium Silicide
Pavel Dytrych, Frantisek Kastanek, Jakub Bumba, Martin Kostejn, Radek Fajgar, Olga Solcova
Circulation technology of waste photovoltaic panels for production of ultrapure silicon and energy in the form of hydrogen storage was designed and verified. Preparation of magnesium silicide from waste photovoltaic panel’s silicon and partially oxidized magnesium was thoroughly studied. Work was focused on process optimization, thus, three groups of reactors were tested, namely the continuously evacuated open reactor, pre-evacuated batch reactor and semiopened reactors. The influence of reaction temperature was evaluated in the range of 330–630 °C for various reaction atmospheres; argon and/or air at pressures of 5, 33, and 100 kPa; and vacuum in the range of 5–30 Pa. The effect of nitrogen and oxygen presence in the atmosphere on the resulted reaction and reaction rate was also thoroughly studied. The minimum reaction time guaranteeing the total conversion of silicon for two purities of used magnesium was also determined. The produced materials were analyzed by dispersive Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction. Finally, the reactor filling, which significantly influenced the formation of magnesium silicide, was tested and established minimally at 30% of reactoŕs volume. Hydrolysis of obtained magnesium silicide by diluted acid for silicon hydrides’ (silanes) production and their subsequent thermal decomposition into the ultrapure silicon and hydrogen were successfully verified.

Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.7b01156

DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.7b01156

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.