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How is PV unfit for recycling? It’s pure silicon, with something like Boron on it. Losslessly recycling might be challenge, but you could definitely reuse all

How is PV unfit for recycling? It’s pure silicon, with something like Boron on it. Losslessly recycling might be challenge, but you could definitely reuse all the Silicon and remake another panel. Which toxic elements do you mean? What’s the fire hazard?

justsaying9 5y ago
It is believed they over time slowly absorb rays of smugness from virtue signalling urbanites in the surrounding vicinity, gradually rendering the panel material radioactive and unfit for future use, even after recycling. Some believe this effect can be mitigated by first sprinkling the unit with the used oil from a sacrificed Chevy 350 engine, while walking in a counterclockwise circle and chanting a priestly incantation. More scientific study is needed to confirm or deny the efficacy of this approach.
culi 5y ago
While solar cells might be almost pure silicon, the panels themselves use a lot more materials to work. For example, 2% of all global copper production was just for panels 2018. The frames and the cells both use aluminum (the actual most abundant material overall). Silver, the most expensive component, has been pushed from about 400mg per panel in 2007 to about 100mg per panel today.[0] Each solar panel contains about 14mg of lead which means around 4.4k tons were used in the production of solar panels in 2018.[1] This is much smaller than, say batteries (which solar panels drive a huge demand for), but is still significant considering lead has been found to leak into the environment from solar panels even from regular rainfall.[2] In 2017, a study found that as much as 62% of the cadmium from cadmium telluride models were leached out at room temperature depending mostly on acidity of the solutions.[3] "Even only one day of leaching of two module pieces in 1 day of acid rain and neutral solution is sufficient to exceed the World Health Organization (WHO) drinking water limit: for Cd the threshold limit is 3 µg=L.33) Even under alkaline conditions (pH 11), it takes only three days to exceed this limit. After nearly one year, the Cd concentration cCd in acidic solutions is almost 20000 µg=L (62%)" [4] [0] https://www.freeingenergy.com/do-we-have-enough-materials-to-make-the-solar-panels-needed-for-a-clean-energy-future/ https://www.freeingenergy.com/do-we-have-enough-materials-to... [1] https://www.freeingenergy.com/are-solar-panels-really-full-of-toxic-materials-like-cadmium-and-lead/ https://www.freeingenergy.com/are-solar-panels-really-full-o... [2] https://www.zmescience.com/science/solar-panels-lead-plants-21012020/ https://www.zmescience.com/science/solar-panels-lead-plants-... [3] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.7567/JJAP.56.08MD02/meta https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.7567/JJAP.56.08MD02/me... [4] https://sci-hub.se/https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.7567/JJAP.56.08MD02/meta https://sci-hub.se/https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.756...
- danans 5y ago
  > In 2017, a study found that as much as 62% of the cadmium from cadmium telluride models were leached out at room temperature depending mostly on acidity of the solutions.[3] From the related article: "The pieces are cut out from modules of the four major commercial photovoltaic technologies: crystalline and amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride as well as from copper indium gallium diselenide." So they cut pieces from a sealed module? Seems unsurprising that leaching would occur when you cut pieces of a PV panel and expose it to acidic solution for an extended period. Functional installed solar panels are sealed behind a protective glass panel.
- onethought 5y ago
  The frames of aluminium are obviously directly recyclable. The silicon is also completely recyclable, so you are talking about fractional materials being “wasted” if you apply a zero effort approach of recycling. Applying a small amount of effort, given you’d need to re-smelt the silicon, all of the materials you mentioned have different melting points (mostly lower than silicon) so you could extract them at the appropriate time as you resmelted the entire product. I don’t see how this is at all a waste problem, looks like a great recycling opportunity.
  - culi 5y ago
    Recycling isn't free. Currently it costs 20-30x more to recycle a panel than to dump it in a landfill. Maybe the aluminum frame, the glass and polymer sheets, and the junction box containing the copper wiring are relatively straightforward to recycle, but it takes much more complicated (see: expensive) machines to get to the smaller parts like the intra-cell wiring and the silicon itself. And the silicon wafers aren't really recyclable. There's some specialized companies that can melt them down to reclaim the silicon cells and various metals within but this takes a lot of energy (and/or chemicals if it's a chemical treatment) and money. The reason solar panels are hard to recycle isn't really because of their materials. The hardest part is separating all those materials, which all have their own unique recycling needs. The EU requires solar recycling; Japan, India, and Australia have some minimal regulation around it; but in the US it's the wild west (except in Washington). Which means there's almost no recycling infrastructure in the US All of this is the reason recycling a solar panel is so much more expensive than dumping it right now. Regulation will definitely help, but getting to the point where it's economically feasible to recycle them will require technology that hasn't actually been developed (yet, hopefully). Some readings: [0] https://grist.org/energy/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-what-will-we-do-with-the-megatons-of-toxic-trash/ https://grist.org/energy/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-wh... [1] https://news.energysage.com/recycling-solar-panels/ https://news.energysage.com/recycling-solar-panels/ [2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342671383_Metal_dissolution_from_end-of-life_solar_photovoltaics_in_real_landfill_leachate_versus_synthetic_solutions_One-year_study https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342671383_Metal_dis...

justsaying9 5y ago

It is believed they over time slowly absorb rays of smugness from virtue signalling urbanites in the surrounding vicinity, gradually rendering the panel material radioactive and unfit for future use, even after recycling. Some believe this effect can be mitigated by first sprinkling the unit with the used oil from a sacrificed Chevy 350 engine, while walking in a counterclockwise circle and chanting a priestly incantation. More scientific study is needed to confirm or deny the efficacy of this approach.

culi 5y ago

While solar cells might be almost pure silicon, the panels themselves use a lot more materials to work. For example, 2% of all global copper production was just for panels 2018. The frames and the cells both use aluminum (the actual most abundant material overall). Silver, the most expensive component, has been pushed from about 400mg per panel in 2007 to about 100mg per panel today.[0] Each solar panel contains about 14mg of lead which means around 4.4k tons were used in the production of solar panels in 2018.[1] This is much smaller than, say batteries (which solar panels drive a huge demand for), but is still significant considering lead has been found to leak into the environment from solar panels even from regular rainfall.[2] In 2017, a study found that as much as 62% of the cadmium from cadmium telluride models were leached out at room temperature depending mostly on acidity of the solutions.[3] "Even only one day of leaching of two module pieces in 1 day of acid rain and neutral solution is sufficient to exceed the World Health Organization (WHO) drinking water limit: for Cd the threshold limit is 3 µg=L.33) Even under alkaline conditions (pH 11), it takes only three days to exceed this limit. After nearly one year, the Cd concentration cCd in acidic solutions is almost 20000 µg=L (62%)" [4] [0] https://www.freeingenergy.com/do-we-have-enough-materials-to-make-the-solar-panels-needed-for-a-clean-energy-future/ https://www.freeingenergy.com/do-we-have-enough-materials-to... [1] https://www.freeingenergy.com/are-solar-panels-really-full-of-toxic-materials-like-cadmium-and-lead/ https://www.freeingenergy.com/are-solar-panels-really-full-o... [2] https://www.zmescience.com/science/solar-panels-lead-plants-21012020/ https://www.zmescience.com/science/solar-panels-lead-plants-... [3] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.7567/JJAP.56.08MD02/meta https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.7567/JJAP.56.08MD02/me... [4] https://sci-hub.se/https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.7567/JJAP.56.08MD02/meta https://sci-hub.se/https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.756...

danans 5y ago
> In 2017, a study found that as much as 62% of the cadmium from cadmium telluride models were leached out at room temperature depending mostly on acidity of the solutions.[3] From the related article: "The pieces are cut out from modules of the four major commercial photovoltaic technologies: crystalline and amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride as well as from copper indium gallium diselenide." So they cut pieces from a sealed module? Seems unsurprising that leaching would occur when you cut pieces of a PV panel and expose it to acidic solution for an extended period. Functional installed solar panels are sealed behind a protective glass panel.
onethought 5y ago
The frames of aluminium are obviously directly recyclable. The silicon is also completely recyclable, so you are talking about fractional materials being “wasted” if you apply a zero effort approach of recycling. Applying a small amount of effort, given you’d need to re-smelt the silicon, all of the materials you mentioned have different melting points (mostly lower than silicon) so you could extract them at the appropriate time as you resmelted the entire product. I don’t see how this is at all a waste problem, looks like a great recycling opportunity.
- culi 5y ago
  Recycling isn't free. Currently it costs 20-30x more to recycle a panel than to dump it in a landfill. Maybe the aluminum frame, the glass and polymer sheets, and the junction box containing the copper wiring are relatively straightforward to recycle, but it takes much more complicated (see: expensive) machines to get to the smaller parts like the intra-cell wiring and the silicon itself. And the silicon wafers aren't really recyclable. There's some specialized companies that can melt them down to reclaim the silicon cells and various metals within but this takes a lot of energy (and/or chemicals if it's a chemical treatment) and money. The reason solar panels are hard to recycle isn't really because of their materials. The hardest part is separating all those materials, which all have their own unique recycling needs. The EU requires solar recycling; Japan, India, and Australia have some minimal regulation around it; but in the US it's the wild west (except in Washington). Which means there's almost no recycling infrastructure in the US All of this is the reason recycling a solar panel is so much more expensive than dumping it right now. Regulation will definitely help, but getting to the point where it's economically feasible to recycle them will require technology that hasn't actually been developed (yet, hopefully). Some readings: [0] https://grist.org/energy/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-what-will-we-do-with-the-megatons-of-toxic-trash/ https://grist.org/energy/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-wh... [1] https://news.energysage.com/recycling-solar-panels/ https://news.energysage.com/recycling-solar-panels/ [2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342671383_Metal_dissolution_from_end-of-life_solar_photovoltaics_in_real_landfill_leachate_versus_synthetic_solutions_One-year_study https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342671383_Metal_dis...