Recycling Technologies for Silicon Solar Modules

Recycling Technologies for Silicon Solar Modules

The objective of this project is to develop a ready-to-commercialize recycling process to recover materials from silicon modules: solar-grade silicon, lead, silver, tin, solar-quality glass cullet, aluminum, and copper. The focus is on a new chemical recycling process to recover solar-grade silicon, lead, silver, tin, and copper from silicon cells.

Upon completion, this project will deliver an optimized chemical recycling process for silicon solar cells extracted from modules. The optimized process will be the basis for designing and constructing a pilot plant for silicon module recycling at 100,000 modules/year in the U.S. which recovers solar-grade silicon, lead, silver, solar-quality glass cullet, aluminum, copper, and tin from silicon modules. This project will increase secondary materials recovery by about 0.2MMT, embodied energy savings of 22PJ, and GHG emissions reduction of 1.106MMT. Assumptions based on recycling 20% of the expected EOL solar panels in the U.S. in 2030.

Project Team:
Arizona State University (ASU), First Solar Inc., TG Companies LLC

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21-01-RR-5014

A Technical Evaluation Framework for Recycling Technologies

A Technical Evaluation Framework for Recycling Technologies

his project seeks to develop a framework for determining a temporal hierarchy of technical recycling constraints and corresponding recycling parameters (recycling rates, recycled contents, and environmental benefits), develop a consistent quantitative methodology for defining the performance of recycling technologies, and collect sufficient material flow, composition, and recycling technology data to demonstrate the framework by evaluating the merits of emerging metal and polymer recycling technologies for select scrap streams.

Upon completion, this project aims to validate the Python‐based Recycling Constraint Evaluation Framework (RCEF) model containing the metal and polymer case study results that can be easily adapted to any material stream, an excel‐based Recycling Technology Performance (RTP) model (input to the RCEF model) containing a quantitative description of >11 emerging recycling technology processes and that can be easily adapted to add new technology definitions, and a published report on A New Framework for Evaluating Recycling Constraints and the Efficacy of Emerging Recycling technologies. Systems Analysis and Integration projects do not directly impact TPMs. 

Project Team:
University of Michigan, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), The Plastics Industry Association, The Aluminum Association, Steel Manufacturers Association

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21-01-SA-5034