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An international team of industry and researchers is developing technology and methods to improve the industry’s ability to recycle decommissioned solar panels, avoiding waste and aiming to recover silicon, silver, glass and polymers at a purity sufficient for further use in the photovoltaic industry or beyond. A European consortium, coordinated by Norwegian research company Sintef, aims to achieve a recycling rate of 70-90% of key solar panel materials at the end of their useful life (EoL), including silicon, metals, glass and the recovery of polymers with high levels of purity. The multi-year Horizon Europe research project, called Quasar, has received €7.1 million ($7.28 million) in funding. “Today, mechanical recycling processes dominate the current market, and these processes are optimized for compliance with laws based on recycled weight rather than value and economics,” Martin Bellmann, Senior Business Developer at Sintef and coordinator of the Quasar project, told pv magazine . “The success and profitability of recycling depends largely on the ability to minimize contamination between different materials, isolate hazardous substances, and recover high-purity fractions of valuable and energy-intensive materials.” The group says it is taking a holistic, or end-to-end circular, approach to move beyond todays limited recycling and recovery, which has typically focused on aluminum frames and glass. One challenge to overcome is how to treat the encapsulating polymers. Another challenge is the evolving design of new generations of solar panels, which differ in size, properties and material composition, making it difficult to create a one-size-fits-all solution, according to Bellmann. The project, which was launched in September 2023 for a duration of four years, has already produced a detailed report quantifying key materials and identifying EoL sources in the European Union for sustainable waste management. It has also launched a good practice guide for on-site inspection of solar panels, in order to promote sustainable handling of solar panels from inspection to recycling. The team will build two pilot lines, one using chemical treatment delamination and the other based on water jet delamination, while the overall process is expected to be improved by applying digital technologies and processes. For example, digital product passports that allow tracking and management of sensor-equipped solar panels throughout their life cycle, capturing information on production, material composition and condition. Technology is also being developed to enable rapid, non-destructive testing methods to assess the condition of EoL panels in the field, and at waste treatment facilities to decide whether to reuse, repair or recycle them. Quasar’s approach reportedly takes into account the supply chain, including concepts of reverse logistics technologies, machine learning, product lifecycle information management (PLIM) based on digital twin modeling and sortation best practices, as well as warehouse operations, testing, repair and reuse. The research consortium includes PV module manufacturers, operators of large-scale PV systems, collectors, recyclers and end-users of recycled secondary raw materials. In no particular order, the participants are Sintef, Elkem, Equinor Energy, Buhck Re.Energy (2ndLife Solar), LuxChemtech, Solitek, Scatec, Rosi, Soren, Dow Silicones Belgium, Dow Chemical Iberica, Institut Photovoltaïque dIle-de-France (IPVF), bifa Umweltinstitut GmbH, Hochschule Offenburg, Electric Power Research Institute Inc (EPRI), Renewables Norway and Norner Research. |
