Solar power is growing at an astonishing rate, providing almost 4% of the world’s electricity, according to the International Energy Agency. But as solar panels reach the end of their working lives, many end up in landfills. University of Kansas scientists are poised to avert this looming waste crisis with help from a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office. In collaboration with the Idaho National Laboratory and First Solar Inc., researchers at KU’s Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis are developing a low-cost method to separate and reuse components from used solar panels for recycling.
“Our goal is to demonstrate a recycling technology that can be easily scaled up and is also green,” said Bala Subramaniam, Dan F. Servey Distinguished Professor of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering and director of the CEBC. “Efficient recycling of solar panels will be essential as the industry grows, to ensure the availability of critical materials, minimize waste and limit costs. Solving this problem now is essential to avoid the type and scale of pollution that we currently face with waste plastics. This project is an example of the forward-thinking research that the KU CEBC and its collaborators undertake to promote the sustainability of our planet.”
Solar panels are constructed from several layers of materials, including glass, adhesives, metals and semiconductors. Recovering rare and costly metals from end-of-life panels is expensive, slow, destructive and requires harsh chemical conditions. According to the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, less than 10% of the country’s decommissioned panels are recycled.
The research team will tackle this problem by developing a new technology to easily separate the layers, then use ozone to recover the valuable metals. They will design the process under laboratory conditions, then employ economic and environmental modeling to scale the solution for industry use. The resulting process is expected to be faster, cleaner and more cost-effective — potentially solving an industrywide recycling challenge.