Development of PV panel recycling process enabling complete recyclability of end-of-life silicon photovoltaic panels

Abstract

The cumulative PV panel waste is expected to reach ≈8 million tonnes by 2030 and ≈ 80 million tonnes by 2050. This presents an opportunity to pursue new avenues in terms of recycling and improving the circularity of the PV panels. In this work we present experimental results for recycling c-Si PV panels using recently developed electrohydraulic shock-wave fragmentation (EHF) of PV panels. The EHF process allows for the recovery of all materials used in the manufacturing of PV panels. We use different types of panels for the recycling process and analyse the material recoverability in each condition. Further, we analyse the effectiveness of chemical treatment in isolating metals from the silicon obtained from recycled c-Si PV panels, providing an opportunity of recovering high quality metal and silicon. The separation process allows for the high-quality material recovery and could potentially improve the economic feasibility of the overall recycling process.