Recycling of materials from silicon base solar cell module

Abstract

As the growing of photovoltaic (PV) industry, the environmental problems become a new consideration. Therefore, we propose a thermal method to recover materials, such as silicon, glass, and metal from conventional crystalline silicon modules. Two steps heating were used in the thermal treatment process in this study. During the thermal process, the EVA could be burned out and the whole glass plate could be obtained without breaking. The recycle glass could be directly used again as the module component when the temperature was well controlled. The recycle yield of silicon was 62% and the purity of obtained silicon material was ~8N after cleaning by chemical solution treatment. The copper could be recovered in further acid treatment. The recycle yield of copper was 85%. The results show that the recycling of materials from silicon based solar module is promising.