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Comprehensive and Sustainable Recycling Process for Blended Different Types of End-of-Life Solar Panels: Leaching and Recovery of Valuable Base and Precious Metals
Kavousi, M.; Alamdari, E.K. A Comprehensive and Sustainable Recycling Process for Different Types of Blended End-of-Life Solar Panels: Leaching and Recovery of Valuable Base and Precious Metals and/or Elements. Metals2023, 13, 1677.
Kavousi, M.; Alamdari, E.K. A Comprehensive and Sustainable Recycling Process for Different Types of Blended End-of-Life Solar Panels: Leaching and Recovery of Valuable Base and Precious Metals and/or Elements. Metals 2023, 13, 1677.
Kavousi, M.; Alamdari, E.K. A Comprehensive and Sustainable Recycling Process for Different Types of Blended End-of-Life Solar Panels: Leaching and Recovery of Valuable Base and Precious Metals and/or Elements. Metals2023, 13, 1677.
Kavousi, M.; Alamdari, E.K. A Comprehensive and Sustainable Recycling Process for Different Types of Blended End-of-Life Solar Panels: Leaching and Recovery of Valuable Base and Precious Metals and/or Elements. Metals 2023, 13, 1677.
Abstract
The production of photovoltaic modules is increasing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, this results in a significant amount of waste at the end of their lifespan. Therefore, recycling these solar panels is important for environmental and economic reasons. However, collecting and separating Crystalline silicon, Cadmium Telluride, and Copper indium gallium selenide panels can be challenging, especially in underdeveloped countries. The innovation of this work is to develop a process to recycle all solar panel waste. The dissolution of all metals is studied through the leaching process as the main step of the flowchart. In the first step of leaching, silver can be recovered 98% by 0.5 nitric acid. Then, the second and third step involves the use of glycine for base metals dissolution, followed by the leaching of valuable metals with hydrochloric acid. The effect of parameters such as initial pH, acid concentration, solid/liquid ratio, and Hydrogen peroxide concentration are studied. The results show that Cu, Pb, Sn, Zn, Cd, In, Ga, and Se can be recovered until about 100% under optimal conditions. The optimal conditions for the dissolution of Cu, Zn, and Cd were the glycine concentration of 0.5 M, Temperature of 25 ˚C, the solid/liquid ratio of 10 gr/l, and 1% of Hydrogen peroxide. The optimized glycine concentration for the leaching of lead and tin was 1.5M. Indium and gallium were recovered to 100% by the use of 5M Hydrochloric acid, S/L=10gr/l, and T=45 ˚C. Separation of selenium and tellurium occurred by 0.5 M HCl at a temperature of 60 ˚C. Additionally, for the first time, a general outlook for the recycling of various end-of-life solar panels is suggested.
Keywords
Solar panel recycling; Leaching; Base metals: Precious metals; Waste management; Environmental impact, Sustainable technology
Subject
Engineering, Metallurgy and Metallurgical Engineering
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
