Abstract
Perovskite photovoltaics are gaining increasing common ground to partner with or compete with silicon photovoltaics to reduce cost of solar energy. However, a cost-effective waste management for toxic lead (Pb), which might determine the fate of this technology, has not been developed yet. Here, we report an end-of-life material management for perovskite solar modules to recycle toxic lead and valuable transparent conductors to protect the environment and create dramatic economic benefits from recycled materials. Lead is separated from decommissioned modules by weakly acidic cation exchange resin, which could be released as soluble Pb(NO3)2 followed by precipitation as PbI2 for reuse, with a recycling efficiency of 99.2%. Thermal delamination disassembles the encapsulated modules with intact transparent conductors and cover glasses. The refabricated devices based on recycled lead iodide and recycled transparent conductors show comparable performance as devices based on fresh raw materials. Cost analysis shows this recycling technology is economically attractive.
Highlights
Perovskite photovoltaics are gaining increasing common ground to partner with or compete with silicon photovoltaics to reduce cost of solar energy
We chose carboxylic acid cation-exchange resin as adsorbent to recycle lead in decommissioned perovskite solar modules
We discovered that a short thermal treatment at high temperature can effectively disassemble the encapsulated perovskite solar modules and obtain both intact indium tin oxide (ITO) glass and back cover glass
Summary
Perovskite photovoltaics are gaining increasing common ground to partner with or compete with silicon photovoltaics to reduce cost of solar energy. We report an end-of-life material management for perovskite solar modules to recycle toxic lead and valuable transparent conductors to protect the environment and create dramatic economic benefits from recycled materials. The refabricated devices based on recycled lead iodide and recycled transparent conductors show comparable performance as devices based on fresh raw materials. Cost analysis shows this recycling technology is economically attractive. The best perovskite solar-cell efficiency already reached 25.5%, comparable to the best. Most efforts in industry and academia have been focusing on upscaling and enhancing module/cell efficiency and stability for perovskite PV. Most efficient metal halide perovskites for this purpose contain toxic lead, such as α-FAPbI311,12, (FAPbI3)0.95(MAPbBr3)0.0513, MAxFA1−xPbI314,15, etc. Would contain ~3.5 tons of lead using the best-known perovskite materials as listed above, assuming a perovskite film thickness of
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