Recycling of silicon from waste PV diamond wire sawing silicon powders: A strategy of NaCO-assisted pressure-less sintering and acid leaching.

Recycling diamond wire sawing silicon powders (DWSSP) from photovoltaic (PV) silicon wafers production has become an urgent problem. The challenge of recovery is the surface oxidation and contamination of the ultra-fine powder with impurities during the sawing and collection process. In this study, a clean recovery strategy of NaCO-assisted sintering and acid leaching was proposed. Due to the Al contamination from the perlite filter aid, the introduced NaCO sintering aid can react with the SiO shell of DWSSP to form a slag phase with accumulated impurity Al during the pressure-less sintering process. Meanwhile, the evaporation of CO contributed to the formation of ring-like pores surrounded by a slag phase, which can be easily removed by acid leaching. When 15 % NaCO was added, the content of impurity Al in DWSSP could be reduced to 0.07 ppm with a removal rate of 99.9 % after acid leaching. The mechanism suggested that the addition of NaCO can trigger the liquid phase sintering (LPS) process of the powders, and the cohesive force and liquid pressures difference generated during the process facilitated the transportation of impurity Al from the SiO shell of DWSSP to the formed liquid slag phase. The efficient silicon recovery and impurity removal of this strategy demonstrated its potential for solid waste resource utilization in the PV industry.