Patent ID: 7927984

Claim:
A process comprising: 1) feeding a deposition gas comprising hydrogen and a silicon monomer into an internal region of a fluidized bed reactor, where the silicon monomer is selected from SiH 4 and HSiCl 3 and the deposition gas is introduced in a heating zone of the fluidized bed reactor, and concurrently 2) feeding an etching gas consisting essentially of SiCl 4 into the heating zone of the fluidized bed reactor through a surrounding region, wherein the surrounding region is between the internal region and a wall of the fluidized bed reactor; wherein the amount of the silicon monomer in step 1) is sufficient to deposit silicon on fluidized silicon particles in a reaction zone located above the heating zone of the fluidized bed reactor, and the amount of SiCl 4 in step 2) is sufficient to etch silicon from the wall of the fluidized bed reactor; and, where a vent gas stream from one or more Siemens reactors is separated in equipment comprising a distillation column to form at least a portion of the deposition gas and at least a portion of the etching gas, after leaving the one or more Siemens reactors and before entering the fluidized bed reactor.