Abstract
The effects of forced convection on the microstructure, macrostructure and macrosegregation of impurities in cylindrical ingots obtained by directional solidification of metallurgical grade silicon were examined. Two experiments were carried out, one without and another with the forced convection induced by a disk at the melt top rotating at 120 rpm during solidification. In the two resulting ingots, two regions exist: (1) a lower region extending from the bottom of the ingot up to 8 mm (without rotation) or 75 mm (with rotation) of columnar grains with straight boundaries, aligned in the heat extraction direction and free from intermetallic particles (except SiC); (2) an upper region of columnar grains with serrated boundaries and intermetallic particles. The lower region, which increases from 8 to 75 mm with disk rotation, is purified and displays concentrations of metallic impurities (except Al) below the recommended limits for solar grade silicon feedstock. The macro/microstructures suggest that the lower region solidified with a planar solid–liquid interface, which changed to cellular/dendritic in the upper region. A mathematical model indicates that, although forced convection increases the growth velocity and decreases the temperature gradient in the liquid, which are detrimental to the stability of a planar solid–liquid interface, convection also decreases the concentration gradient in the liquid, increasing stability.
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The materials and datasets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
References
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) and FIPT (Fundação de Apoio ao Instituto de Pesquisas Tecnológicas) grants provided to D.P. Nascimento and the support to this work by CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico), grant 311206/2014-0, and FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) with grant 2017/22361-6.
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This work was supported by CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior), FIPT (Fundação de Apoio ao Instituto de Pesquisas Tecnológicas), CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico) (grant 311206/2014–0), FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) (grant 2017/22361–6).
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(a) Denir P. Nascimento: Data curation; Formal analysis; Investigation; Methodology; Software; Visualization; Writing original draft, review & editing. (b) Marcelo A. Martorano: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Visualization; Writing original draft, review & editing. (c) Moyses L. Lima: Conceptualization; Funding acquisition; Methodology; Resources; Writing—review & editing. (d) João B. Ferreira Neto: Conceptualization; Funding acquisition; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Supervision; Writing—review & editing. (e) Angelo F. Padilha: Funding acquisition; Methodology; Writing—review & editing.
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Nascimento, D.P., Martorano, M.A., Lima, M.L. et al. Effects of Forced Convection on the Purification of Metallurgical Silicon by Directional Solidification. Silicon 16, 1125–1145 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-023-02742-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-023-02742-7