Direct carbothermal receiving of solar grade silicon

The global silicon market is quite young among other markets. In this market, there is a small quantity of participants, mainly from the developed countries. This market is quite monopolized and the demand on investment is growing. The competition is increasing because new participants from China and South-East Asia enter the market. Economically, it is more efficient to produce the technical silicon already with a high purity of 99.90%. This silicon is produced by following countries: USA, Germany, Norway, Japan and other technically highly developed countries, such as China. The use of very pure quartz and gaseous soot in the process of carbothermal reduction gives us the opportunity to reach a very good quality of the received silicon. Based on these results, we have established a pilot line production of technical silicon with a high purity of 99.95% at the JSC “IRZK” in Kazakhstan.