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IBM Recycles Waste CPU Wafers Into Solar Panels

Posted by kdawson on from the trash-to-power-revisited dept.

Luyseyal writes "IBM has developed a process for scrubbing waste silicon wafers clean, allowing the otherwise highly secret waste to be sold. The silicon quality usually necessary for solar production is very high and the cost of solar panels reflects it. Recycling this waste should help bring down the cost in the long run and add a new profit vector for chip manufacturers. The article notes that IBM has such a high profile in the chip business that this recycling tech should spread rapidly."

6 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. I'll wait for AMD to do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Their scrap wafers turned into solar power should generate more power at a fraction of the cost.

  2. Re:As the 8th Most Common Element (by Mass)... by dwywit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think it's got more to do with the "energy debt" that silicon wafers acquire during their manufacture. Anything is better than starting from scratch.

    --
    They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
  3. Re:How Much? by Ogemaniac · · Score: 5, Informative

    It actually takes an enormous amount of energy to make solar (or IC) grade silicon. The estimates I have seen calculate that about 20% of the total energy produced by a typical crystalline silicon solar panel is necessary to construct and install the cell. Roughly half that energy is embedded in the silicon itself.

    I disagree with the parent's parent post. There is no reason that silicon cells are not viable renewable energy sources. They produce five units of energy over the long haul for every one put in (excluding sunlight, of course!) - and that one could be renewable itself.

    Silicon for IC and solar is so expensive and energy intensive because it must be so pure. To produce it, SiO2 (quartz, sand, etc) first reduced with carbon (similar to how iron oxide is made into iron). This requires lots of energy. This product, however, is crude. To purify it, it must be gassified to various chlorosilane molecules and then distilled (lots of energy in both steps). The highly pure gas species are again reduced to silicon metal and then recrystallized carefully to eliminate even more impurities...again, energy intensive. In most cases, these steps are undertaken at different facilities or companies, requiring shipment at each step as well.

  4. Oh man! by Derek+Loev · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Are those solar panels real??!! They're huge!"
    "No way man, that's got to be silicon. There's no way it's natural."

  5. Re:How Much? by sholden · · Score: 5, Funny

    First you have to melt sand. Not cheese on a pizza, but sand

    God damn it! No wonder my attempts have never worked. You have no idea how many different types of cheese I have tried...

  6. Re:As the 8th Most Common Element (by Mass)... by Mark_MF-WN · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I remember reading about how the entire concept of "recycling" started with aluminum -- because the difference between refining new aluminum from bauxite and reprocessing existing aluminum is so incredibly great. Even iron is recycled to an extraordinary degree. And they say that 99% of all the gold that has ever been mined is still in use. There are even a few companies that believe that they can profitably recover platinum from the dust on America's highways left behind by catalytic converters!

    Is it any surprise that silicon, being so expensive to purify, would ultimately start to see at least some measure of waste recovery?