Towards long term sustainability of c-Si solar panels: the environmental benefits of glass sheet recovery

TL;DR

This study demonstrates a heat-assisted mechanical process to recover glass sheets from silicon solar panels, significantly reducing environmental impact and carbon emissions by enabling reuse without re-melting.

Contribution

It introduces a feasible method for recovering and reusing solar panel glass, potentially lowering the industry's carbon footprint and energy consumption.

Findings

Glass recovery is feasible for most silicon panels.

Reused glass can be directly applied without melting.

Potential to cut PV industry emissions by over 2 million tonnes annually.

Abstract

The cover glass in a silicon solar panel accounts for about 2/3 of the device's weight. Recycling these devices at their end-of-life is fundamental to reducing the industry's environmental impact. Here we investigate the recovery of these glass sheets by a heat-assisted mechanical process. A panel was delaminated, and we have utilized Fourier-transform infrared, Raman, and energy-dispersive spectroscopies to confirm the composition of the remaining components and identify aging signals. The results demonstrate that the panel's design was similar to most Silicon solar panels in the market, and we concluded that it would be feasible to recover the glass in most of these devices. Due to its chemical and mechanical strength, this glass would be ready to be reused without the need to melt it again, bringing substantial savings in its energy content and carbon emission related to its production. The glass sheet would be ready to be used as cover glass in another solar panel or architecture material. Our estimates showed that this could be a pathway to reducing the photovoltaic industry's carbon emissions by more than 2 million tonnes per year.