In less than the time it takes to read this paragraph, the sun will have provided as much energy to Earth as used by all of human civilisation in one day. Yet, despite the huge opportunities solar power affords as a renewable source of energy, it still represents a small fraction of our current capacity to generate power.
One factor holding back the growth of the photovoltaic (PV) industry, which provides the modules that make up a solar panel, is the high cost of the solar-grade silicon on which it currently depends. Now, scientists from the University of Cambridge are developing and up-scaling a new process for making solar-grade silicon that they estimate will be 80% more efficient in terms of energy consumption and cost and generate 90% less CO2.
Based on a procedure known as the FFC Cambridge process developed by Professor Derek Fray and colleagues in Cambridge’s Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, the new modification pioneered by Dr Antony Cox has extended FFC to silicon for the first time and is now in its final research and development stages.
Image: Edge of silicon ingot Credit: BT Usdin on flickr
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Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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