Manufacturing of photovoltaic modules

The raw material for the manufacturing of photovoltaic cells and modules is silicon. Silicon is a semi-conducting material, which besides being one of the most common materials on the planet, is also very economical (it is also a by-product of the electronics industry).

To make use of it, the silicon must be of a high level of purity and based on the level of purity, it is divided into types of use - metallurgic, solar and electronic. The different molecular structures determine the type of silicon: Amorphous, Polycrystaline and Monocrystaline. In Amorphous silicon, the atoms are randomly oriented, in Polycrystaline, groups of atoms are randomly oriented whereas in monocrystaline the atoms are oriented in the same direction and linked to each other in the same way.

The production of photovoltaic cells is a consolidated reality, however it still cannot be considered economic due to many reasons; the methods of hot drawing, the creation of crystals, which comes about at over 1,000 °C, the doping for the diffusion of metallic gases at well over 100°C, which consumes a great deal of energy, as well as the time taken for the faceting of the final cells.