Eco-efficient removal of polymer back sheet fraction and material separation from solar cell waste

Abstract

This study explores an innovative solution for solar cell waste recycling, addressing current methods' limitations, which often neglect the polymer fraction, and leading to environmental risks. Instead of solely using the traditional thermal treatment, which can release toxic gases from polymer back sheets, this study proposes an alternative approach. The proposed method includes a selective mechanical peeling process supplemented by thermal treatment as the first step to separate the multilayer components of silicon-based PV panels. The experiment used a two-step peeling process: initially isolating the back sheet, then removing non-glass layers from the glass. Subsequent thermal treatments were tested to disintegrate the remaining polymers and separate materials optimally. The proposed method's effectiveness and environmental implications are compared to traditional methods using Raman spectroscopy, FTIR, XRD, XRF, and gas chromatography. Findings indicate the proposed method reduces energy consumption and pollutant emissions while increasing the purity of recovered materials.