Experimental investigations for recycling of silicon and glass from waste photovoltaic modules

This paper reports a new procedure for the recovery of resources from waste photovoltaic modules. The tempered glass was recovered using organic solvents. The metal impurities were removed by applying a chemical etching solution on the surface of the PV cell. We offer a much more efficient approach for recycling PV cells than the conventional method. The highest yield of silicon recovered was 86% when the PV cell was placed in the chemical etching solution for 20 min, along with the surfactant, which accounted for 20% of the total solution's weight at room temperature. This investigation showed that a high yield of pure silicon with purity of 99.999% could be obtained. The recovered pure silicon from waste PV modules would be contributed to the solution of several problems such as the supply of silicon, manufacturing costs, and end-of-life management of PV modules.

► A PV module is highly energy efficient, friendly to environment and cost effective. ► We have developed a new method to recycle the waste PV modules. ► The process for recovering silicon and tempered glass was divided into three steps. ► We got 99.99% (4 N) pure silicon without metal impurities and EVA resin. ► Thus pure silicon and tempered glass were recovered from waste PV modules.