(Credit: Canva Pro)A new method for recycling solar panels that can recover silver with greater efficiency has brought renewed excitement for the industry.
The new process can quickly sort through the different components of solar panels, which is an important step for photovoltaic (PV) recycling. The method was developed by engineers at the University of New South Wales, also known as UNSW Sydney, who also patented the process. A team from the ProMO lab at UNSW Sydney, led by Professor Yansong Shen, announced the new process, which offers an effective separation of 99% of PV cell particles.
The new method comes as recycling solar panels has become more critical as the industry continues to grow. An estimated 8 million tons of photovoltaic waste will be produced by 2030 when solar panels come to their end of life, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. By 2050, the figure will rise to 78 million tons.
Recycling solar panels has been a difficult feat, with many individual parts of glass, silicon, metals, wiring and plastic integrated together complicating the process. In order to be recycled and reused, solar panel components need to be separated to avoid contamination with other materials, and manufacturers will only use materials of high purity. Without improved recycling methods, the majority of solar panels will end up in landfills at the end of their life cycle.
“PV panels usually last for around 20 or 25 years, so given the growth in domestic solar power since the 1990s we can see there is a very pressing and urgent problem to deal with those first generation of panels that are coming to their end-of-life,” Shen said. “We want to reuse and recycle those panels, but at the moment there is very limited research and very limited technology to allow us to do so effectively and prevent them from just ending up in landfill.”
Using the team’s method, between 5 million to 50 million kilograms of silver could potentially be recycled from the cumulative waste by 2050. Around 0.64kg of silver per ton of PV waste has been recovered in tests.
Once the components have been separated, a traditional chemical leaching and precipitation can extract specific elements such as pure silica and silver. Testing revealed that researchers were able to extract 99% of silver from a solar cell for potential reuse.
