Crystalline silicon solar cell is one of the most important cell in the photovoltaic industry. The preparation of cell materials requires cutting polycrystalline silicon ingots to silicon wafers. Nearly half of the crystalline silicon will enter the cutting fluid in the form of ultrafine powder during the cutting process, which will cause waste of silicon resources and environmental pollution. The cutting waste consists of 90% silicon powder and less Fe, Al, Ca and other impurities. At present, the research on the utilization of cutting wastes mainly focuses on the recovery of high purity silicon and the preparation of silicon-containing materials. Recovery of high purity silicon can realize the recycling of silicon resources from the end of production to the production side. However, the market requires a higher purity of silicon powder. In the purification process, it will produce higher energy consumption and secondary pollutants such as waste water and residue. Cutting waste materials can be directly used to prepare silicon containing materials such as alloys, ceramics, nanomaterials and battery materials, so as to obtain corresponding high value-added materials. However, there is still a large research space for product performance control and overall quality improvement. In this paper, the production process and composition characteristics of polycrystalline diamond cutting waste are briefly described, the cutting wastes recovery used for preparation of high purity silicon, silicon alloy, nitride, nanomaterials and cell materials are summarized, the technological characteristics of various high purity silicon recovery methods (acid leaching method, melting method and other new methods) are reviewed, and the future development direction of resource utilization is discussed. © 2021, Materials Review Magazine. All right reserved.
