Techno-environmental analysis of resource recovery processes from end-of-life PV panels

Given the dramatic increase in end-of-life (EoL) photovoltaic (PV) panels, recycling of the EoL PV panels and recovery of valuable resources therein in a sustainable way became a major concern in the industry. In this regard, the feasibility of alternative leaching reagents that can replace the conventional HNO₃ was assessed, and resulting stoichiometries from the experiments were used to construct the inventory for the following life cycle assessment. Under optimized conditions, the efficiency of the alternative systems was comparable (ca. 90%) to the conventional system using HNO₃, while the environmental impacts of which effectively reduced in most categories using the ReCiPe2016 midpoint method. In addition, uncertainties associated with the amount of chemicals and recovered materials were further considered from the Monte Carlo simulation. The resulting impact variances from using the different leaching agents showed meaningful statistical differences (p < 0.05), which corroborates the legitimacy of so-called ‘green leaching’.