Research and development of a pilot-scale recycling process for photovoltaic panels

Overview & Synopsis

The photovoltaic (PV) market is an important and growing market, with a global cumulative installed PV capacity of 586 GW at the end of 2019, of which 24% is in Europe. By 2030, the projected end-oflife PV modules in Europe will amount to a quantity sufficient to allow an economically viable recycling process. Sibelco has designed a mechanical-based PV recycling process. The crucial steps of this process, which consist of dimensional reduction, glass delamination and density separation, were tested at the pilotplant scale, and a proof of concept was established for each of these steps. Successful glass recovery was achieved with a specific comminution method, researched and designed by Sibelco, which confers a competitive advantage to Sibelco relative to other PV recyclers, who recover fine glass which is heavily contaminated. In addition this process avoids the dilution of valuable metals, opening the possibility for viable metal recovery. The process designed focuses on the recovery of materials of high purity, such as cullet-grade glass, as well as valuable metals which are present in low concentrations in the PV panel, such as copper and silver. Obstacles regarding PV glass valorization as a secondary raw material have been studied, and ideas for upscaling of the designed PV recycling process to an industrial level are presented.