Environment & Energy

The Manufacture of Solar Cells, Siloxane Discharges, and Methyl Mercury Formation.

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The paper gives some details of the rather nasty chemistry of solar cell manufacture (of course while declaring the exercise "green" ) which includes, as I was already aware the use of hydrofluoric acid. I consider hydrofluoric acid to be the most scary chemical with which I've worked, and I worked with the war gas phosgene, lots of it.

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So called "renewable energy" is mass intensive, highly dependent on vast mining enterprises. Mercury is not used directly in solar cells, but is an artifact of the mining of the other metals in these cells, in CIGS solar cells, copper, indium, gallium as well the toxic relatively rare nonmetal element selenium, which is an artifact of copper mining, and is recovered from the anode sludge.

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