Solar Panels Dissected
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Solar panels are made of silicon, the second most abundant element on earth behind oxygen. However it is mostly found in oxidized form such as silicon dioxide, sand or quartz. In the refining process, carbon and SiO2 is heated to 1800 degrees. This results in 98% pure silicon and as such is not suitable for semiconductor material used in solar panels. Further refining is required. To do this, it is transferred into trichlorosilane, a volatile liquid, then distilled and reduced by reacting it with a hot surface of silicon. Those two processes require a lot of energy, of cause this energy has to be paid for and is one reason why solar panels are expensive.
The future of solar panels is in the reduction of the silicon component. Meanwhile we see a slow rate of improvement of conversion efficiency, slow reduction of cost and uncertain supply of raw materials.
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