A Review on Recycling of Solar Photovoltaic Modules for Recovery of Metals

Abstract

Solar energy, as a form of renewable energy, has developed rapidly in the past few decades and presents a huge market potential. End-of-life (EOL) photovoltaic solar panels (SP) are regarded as hazardous electronic waste, making their disposal an important environmental concern. On the other hand, recovering priceless metals and stuff from such trash results in significant advantages. The steps of physical and chemical processing that take place during the recycling process will eventually become crucial. Therefore, sustainable ways of end-of-life PV cell handling are essential from both economic and environmental perspectives. This article reviews the various recycling methods for solar modules (SM), it manipulates to separate and recycle various materials in waste solar cells without destroying the integrity of various materials. This study initially, presented the solar panel models and structures, and the need for a recycling method for solar panels. Recovery of metals in the recycle of EOL photovoltaic modules describes the various techniques utilized for recycling, FRELP (Full Recovery End-of-Life Photovoltaics) is a recycling process specifically designed for end-of-life photovoltaic (PV) modules. It involves crushing the modules to separate the glass, semiconductor material, and metals, c-Si (Crystalline Silicon) In the recycling process for c-Si PV modules, the modules are first mechanically shredded to separate the glass, metal, and silicon cells. The cells are then chemically treated to remove impurities and separate the silicon wafers., and CdTe (Cadmium Telluride) recycling process. It also analyses the various recycling processes like mechanical, chemical, and thermal processes. Among them, physical methods are commonly utilized to separate aluminum and other materials of waste solar cells before chemical methods and heat treatment methods. The objective of chemical and heat treatment methods is similar; both are used to achieve a clear elimination of EVA (Ethylene Vinyl Acetate) film, which is the outer layer of crystalline silicon that can only be recovered after EVA film has been eliminated. Nevertheless, chemical treatment is suitable for the recovery of metal. As a result, this article also reviews current trends and developments besides the advantages of the recycling process in PV modules (PVM). The findings of the comparison studies show that this method, which combines statistical and attention mechanism recycling methodologies, is guaranteed to offer cost-effective defect detection in general with performance that is comparable to that of modern SOTA (State of the Art). SOTA refers to the most advanced and effective methodologies or techniques available for recycling processes that combine statistical analysis and attention mechanisms.