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It is not bizarre if everyone keeps bring up the same issue. In your area they will be picked up and shipped to another country with lower environmental standa
by ipaddr 5y ago
It is not bizarre if everyone keeps bring up the same issue.
In your area they will be picked up and shipped to another country with lower environmental standards for disassembling.
These are some of the chemicals of concern:
cadmium telluride, copper indium selenide, cadmium gallium (di)selenide, copper indium gallium (di)selenide, hexafluoroethane, lead, and polyvinyl fluoride. Additionally, silicon tetrachloride, a byproduct of producing crystalline silicon, is highly toxic
- Robotbeat 5y agoSilicon tetrachloride being a “highly toxic” “byproduct of producing crystalline silicon” is a new astroturfing mantra I’ve seen repeated lately. Too bad it’s recycled as part of the process (and is useful on its own for making high purity optical fibers) or solar enemies might have a point! It is an intermediate product, not a waste product.
- philipkglass 5y agoThere was a highly publicized story in 2008 about Chinese silicon companies dumping it illegally. Ever since it's been repeatedly invoked as anti-solar ammunition. It's like constantly warning about melamine poisoning from milk because an unscrupulous company did that before too.
- kortex 5y agoAdditionally, in 2011 China set standards requiring that companies recycle at least 98.5 percent of their silicon tetrachloride waste. It's fairly easy and cost effective to recycle once you have the infrastructure in place. It seems most of the pollution reports are from before the mandate and also when precursors were way cheaper relative to the final product.
- pfdietz 5y agoSiCl4 is also entirely non-persistent in the environment. It reacts vigorously with water.
- jfoutz 5y agoI don't understand the mechanism that hexafluoroethane would be produced by a solar panel. I guess, that gas might be produced as an impurity during manufacturing, but wouldn't that be at the factory? That seems like something that would be really easy to monitor and regulate because fabs are expensive and rare. could you explain more about the hexafluoroethane?
- baybal2 5y agoIt been used as an etchant few decades ago for microchips. You don't need to etch solar cells for any reason.