How to recycle waste solar photovoltaic panels for reuse?

Time：2023-02-24 17:01:19

With the widespread popularity of solar photovoltaic panels, more and more solar panels are gradually entering and exiting the end-of-life phase. At present, the recovery rate and reuse rate of solar-grade silicon are very low, so there is still a lot of room for improvement. Recycling silicon in photovoltaics is important for reducing carbon emissions, and R&D efforts should be stepped up now to make the technology available for the recycling and recycling market as large numbers of modules start to end up. Recycling and reusing solar-grade silicon can also reduce the environmental impact of photovoltaic panels, as the material accounts for about half of the device's carbon footprint. The technology to recover solar-grade silicon from used solar panels could transform the module recycling market.

Solar photovoltaic panel recycling production line

The value of silicon recovery could be higher if the recycling process could provide solar-grade silicon rather than metallurgical-grade silicon. Currently, low-purity silicon typically recovered from used panels is worth about $2/kg, while solar-grade material costs about $25/kg. However, the industry has a low tolerance for impurities in silicon for reuse. "Impurity control is a challenge throughout the supply chain.

SUNY GROUP has developed solar photovoltaic panel recycling and processing equipment in response to the needs of the market and customers. After the photovoltaic modules are decommissioned, they go through five processing steps: one is to disassemble the components and transport them to the processing organization; the other is to disassemble and remove them. The backplane and wires; the third is to break the components and remove the outer tempered glass; the fourth is to carry out pyrolysis; the fifth is to take out the valuable metal and silicon materials in the components.

Solar photovoltaic panel recycling process:

Solar-PV Panel Recycling Flowchart

The solar photovoltaic panels that need to be recycled are sent to the centralized processing center, and the processing center disassembles and separates the aluminum components, which are usually concentrated in the frame of the photovoltaic panel. This step is now completed by the photovoltaic panel frame dismantling machine.

The second step is to process the photovoltaic panel. The main purpose is to separate the glass. A glass remover can be used to physically peel off the entire piece of glass from the panel.

The third part is crushing, which uses a twin-shaft shearing crusher to break the materials processed in the previous step into small pieces, and then conduct various screenings on these crushed materials based on physical and chemical properties to separate different materials .

In this way, different raw materials that can be reused can be obtained, environmental pollution and damage can be reduced, and economic profits can also be created.

It should be noted that solar photovoltaic panel recycling is currently an emerging industry, and related technologies are constantly changing and updating, and new technical solutions may be launched at a certain point in time.

Recycling of silicon materials, the residual value of waste photovoltaic panels is completed by photovoltaic panel processing equipment, glass is completed by glass removal machines, frame processing is completed by frame dismantling equipment, and the main body of crushing is completed by integral knife box, high-strength spindle, imported alloy steel The cutter is composed of large shear force, high stability, good shredding effect and long service life, which can quickly achieve the goal of crushing and recycling high-value components in waste photovoltaic panels. The whole treatment process adopts mechanical crushing, no waste water, waste gas and dust are produced, which can realize the harmless treatment process, high recovery yield, low resource consumption, low environmental pollution and high economic benefits.

Photovoltaic panels after coarse crushing, fine crushing, sorting and other processes will be sent to different industries for reuse. For example, cullet will be sent to the glass manufacturing industry, aluminum frames will be sent to aluminum refineries, waste plastics will be used as fuel in cement plants, silicon will be reused in the precious metals industry, and cables and joints will be in the form of copper beads. Make a sale.