APPLICATION OF THE ENHANCED SELECTIVE IONIZATION METHOD TO SILICON PRODUCTION

Present productions method of high graded pure silicon for electronics purposes involves usage of large quantities of energy, water and chemicals. The possibility to directly separate silica into its constituents with a single step would provide benefits in terms of energy consumption, logistics and environmental impact. This separation is feasible if performed by electromagnetic means on ionized silica and taking advantage of the ionization gap between oxygen and silicon, a process that can be called Enhanced Selective Ionization. In this paper the energetic feasibility of a direct separation of silica using the Enhanced Selective Ionization Method is evaluated in its energetic requirements and conversion yields. The preliminary configuration of a demonstrator devoted to demonstrate the concept is presented. The main functional parts are presented along with the respective power budget. For each part analytical and numerical allow to calculate a global energy cost per unit of silicon, which is compared with traditional production processes.