Abstract
With the dramatic increase of photovoltaic (PV) module installation in solar energy-based industries, the methods for recovering waste solar generators should be emphasized as the backup of the PV market for environmental protection. Crystalline-silicon accounts for most of the worldwide PV market and it contains valuable materials such as high purity of silicon (Si), silver (Ag), copper (Cu), tin (Sn), and lead (Pb). This study can provide an efficient recycling process for valuable materials resourced from waste crystalline-silicon PV module, including Si in the PV cell, and Ag, Cu, Pb, Sn, in PV ribbon. As tempered glass and Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA) resin were removed, the module was separated into two materials, PV ribbon and PV cell. For PV cell purification, Si with purity at 99.84% was recovered by removing impurities such as aluminum (Al) and Ag by two-step leaching and dissolving the impurities. For PV ribbon recovering, purified metal or metal oxide was obtained through the processes of leaching/polishing, extraction, and chemical precipitation. In the polishing process, 99.5% of copper wire was collected. The purities of final products are 99.7% for CuO, 99.47% for PbO, 99.68% for SnO2, and 98.85% for Ag respectively.
Highlights
This study provided three methods to separate the coating layer from ribbons and ionized metals for the metal separation process
Most of the impurities of PV cells are on the surface
Extraction efficiency of tin was 86.22% and concentrated 8 times of tin in tributyl phosphate (TBP), and McCabe–Thiele Diagram showed that 3 step extraction can extract 99.9% of tin
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Crystalline-silicon (c-Si) solar cell has been considered as an excellent generator owing to its abundant resource, stable oxidant, insolubility from water, etc. The installation of the c-Si Photovoltaic (PV) module always took 90% of the PV market, and the output of the PV module was 97.081 GW in 2019 [2]. The more production produced, the more end-of-life PV modules wasted. The waste panels will become an inevitable waste issue. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)
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