Circulation of valuable materials from Waste Crystalline-silicon Photovoltaic modules

Abstract

With the rapid increase of PV module installation the methods for recovering waste solar generators should be studied as the backup of the PV market This study provided a valuable materials resource circulation process from waste crystalline silicon PV module The process was divided into four groups to effectively recycle PV module including pretreatment PV cell purification PV ribbon metals separation and metals purification In pretreatment part tempered glass and back sheets were removed from PV module by organic solvent After removing tempered glass PV module was heating to 500°C to eliminate EVA resin on the surface of the module The module was separated into two materials PV ribbon and PV cell In PV cell purification part two-step leaching was employed to dissolve the impurity such as Al Ag in PV cell After the process the purity of silicon was 99 84% In PV ribbon metals separation process leaching and polishing were both studied and compared The agent with Cu Pb Sn ions after leaching was separated through the extraction process In the final metal purification step CuO PbO SnO2 were obtained by chemical precipitation and calcination Ag was obtained by precipitation and chemical reduction The purity of CuO PbO SnO2 and Ag are over 99%

Date of Award	2021
Original language	English
Supervisor	Wei-sheng Chen (Supervisor)