Electrohydraulic fragmentation processing enabling separation and recovery of all components in end-of-life silicon photovoltaic panels

Abstract

The exponential increased use of PV panels for energy production would also lead to enormous volumes of PV waste that need to be dealt with in an environmentally responsible manner. In this work we present experimental results for recycling crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV panels using recently developed electrohydraulic shock wave-based fragmentation of PV panels. The electrohydraulic fragmentation process allows for the efficient delamination of the modules and subsequent recovery of almost all valuable materials used in the manufacturing of PV panels, without thermally decomposing the polymers and eliminates creation of any toxic or hazardous waste during the process. We study the impact of the type of panel, size of the feed material and process duration on the quantity and quality of material recovered after the process.