Photovoltaic Waste Management – Technologies and Strategies to Recycle c-Si and CI(G)S PV Waste

One of the most important sources of renewable energy is solar energy, and the estimated future growth in this sector will require large amounts of materials. Solar panels have a life span of 25-30 years, and developing recycling processes to recover the strategic materials is critical considering the expected volume of photovoltaic waste in the coming decades, over 60 million tons worldwide. The PHOTORAMA project has developed several technologies to recycle solar panels, mainly focusing on the c-Si and CI(G)S PV technologies. The technologies are combined to best recycle end-of-life products and production scrap, and recover the materials through several steps: disassembly, delamination, as well as metal and materials recovery. The modules are processed in such a way that recovered materials are separated and ready for sale directly, like aluminium frames and clean glass. Technologies focusing on gradual disassembling of the PV modules have been successfully developed, at the same time making the more valuable metals more accessible for further recycling steps. The metal recovery development technologies focus on using environmentally friendly solutions by using non-toxic chemicals such as ethaline and methane sulfonic acid, temperatures under 60 °C, electrowinning, and recovery of chemicals. The project aims to scale-up and demonstrate the potential of those technologies, providing new business perspectives for high-value recycling.