Development and Testing of a Thermomechanical Procedure to Assess the Disassembly Potential of a Photovoltaic Module

In this study, we present a method to assess the disassembly potential of photovoltaic (PV) modules by measuring the force required to separate their layers using two approaches: (a) peel-off tests on modules without cells and (b) delamination tests on single cell PV modules. Both tests are performed at different temperatures; the first measures the adhesion strength of the encapsulant with glass, while the delamination tests are performed using a knife. The research focuses on the performance of different encapsulants including Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA), Thermoplastic Polyolefin (TPO) and Polyolefin Elastomer (POE), while also investigating the changes in adhesion strength after 1000 hours of exposure to damp heat (DH) conditions, 85 ºC and 85% RH. The results show that TPO has the lowest delamination strength, followed by EVA, with POE being the most resistant to delamination although significant decrease in their adhesion was observed above 60 °C. In addition, modules exposed to DH conditions showed lower adhesion than those not exposed to such conditions.