Towards sustainability via recycling solar photovoltaic Panels, A review

Abstract

Human activities are placing a progressively increasing demand on energy consumption. Renewable energy resources are a promising alternative to fossil fuels due to their sustainability. There has been lately an immense growth in the application of several renewable energy resources, including solar energy, where the abundance of waste solar panels is becoming challenging. Solar panels have a shelf life from 20 to 30 years. Photovoltaic panels modules consist of both valuable and toxic materials that might possess harm to the human wellbeing and to the environment if not disposed appropriately. These days, research to recover solar photovoltaic panels is confronting several difficulties, beside that there is an urge to design an economically non-toxic, easy, and feasible technologies for their recovery. The end-of-life solar panels’ appropriate management is just at the beginning in several places in the world, besides that there is a demand for the producers’ responsibilities towards the issue. The disassembly and recyclability of the end-of-life solar cells is not really deliberated because of the deficiency of solar panels recycling plants worldwide. Recyclability of the expired solar cells can decrease the production cost of new systems. This review article discusses the synthesis of solar panels, with a detailed description for its different parts. Recycling systems for photovoltaic wastes are elaborately discussed along with addressing the adverse environmental issues of the huge quantities of solar panels wastes besides providing a detailed basis for supporting recycling of solar panels. Lastly, the policies and regulations for solar panel recycling is also considered.