ABSTRACT
Solar energy is being explored in many different ways, but the most popular method includes solar cells based on silicon, which transform sunlight directly into electricity through the photovoltaic effect. The growing interest in the production of silicon as a raw material for manufacturing solar cells has evolved in an important way, and an increase in demand up to around 30% is expected. The production of silane is a process that involves numerous issues, mainly on the production cost because of the high purity that is required. The conventional process for silane production by the proportional decomposition of trichlorosilane consists of two reactors and multiple distillation columns. Reactive distillation is a technology particularly attractive for reactions such as proportional decomposition of trichlorosilane. In the process design, the objective function is the minimization of the total annual cost, which is proportional to the heat duty, services, and column size.
