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Actually, gallium has replaced boron as a dopant for Si PV cells, since it avoids an annoying kind of light-induced efficiency degradation that boron is subject
by pfdietz 1y ago
Actually, gallium has replaced boron as a dopant for Si PV cells, since it avoids an annoying kind of light-induced efficiency degradation that boron is subject to. I don't believe gallium is significantly toxic, and certainly not at the amounts used as a dopant.
The big heavy metal issue for PV has been lead for contact to the backing sheet, but this isn't an issue if you go with bifacial modules (no backing sheet).
- kragen 1y agoI very much appreciate the corrections! Apparently there is one report of gallium poisoning in the medical literature; it was nonfatal but resulted in irreversible cardiomyopathy: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22024274/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22024274/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/13/the-weekend-read-gallium-in-the-fight-against-lid/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/13/the-weekend-read-gall... backs you up and also mentions that indium (also nontoxic, as far as anybody knows) has been tried but was not in mass use as of that article. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/05/24/gallium-doping-and-solar-cell-degradation/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/05/24/gallium-doping-and-so... talks about the potential of "rejuvenating" gallium-doped PV cells.