Fig. 2: Crystalline silicon photovoltaic panel manufacturing stages. | Nature Communications

Fig. 2: Crystalline silicon photovoltaic panel manufacturing stages.

From: Reshoring silicon photovoltaics manufacturing contributes to decarbonization and climate change mitigation

Fig. 2

The output from quartz mining stage is the silica sand, which is the input for the metallurgical grade silicon production (step 1). Metallurgical grade silicon is the input of both solar grade silicon production and electronics grade silicon production (step 2). Three types of crystalline silicon materials go through different paths for wafer production (step 3a & 4a for single-crystalline silicon, step 3b & 4b for multi-crystalline silicon, and step 3c for ribbon silicon). Photovoltaic cells are made from wafers (step 5), and photovoltaic panels are made from cells (step 6).

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