Domestic and commercially used photovoltaic (PV) panels are fast approaching the end of their useful/productive life. Several components of such panels are being actively considered for reuse as a means to alleviate supply chain issues, meet the goals of a circular economy, and minimize mining & PV waste. The current paradigm is to think of a 20-25-year-old panel as non-viable and hence the conventional approach is to subject such panels to destructive recycling, often using energy-intensive and non-eco-friendly processes.

One of our focus areas is currently geared towards the exploration of sustainable pathways involving the use of solvent media for process modifications at low temperatures to recover intact PV cells. Extending the useful lifetime of such intact PV cells by re-encapsulating them and integrating them into “new” panels is expected to minimize the environmental impact of waste PVs. We look at solvent screening and encapsulant dissolution characteristics and track the rate of PV cell detachment. Preliminary results indicate that the use of organic solvents can accomplish the recovery of intact PV cells with an average of 92.4% detachment at optimized conditions.

Using the techno-economic analysis (TEA), we estimate the cost of re-encapsulating PV cells and integrating them into “new” panels thus evaluating the economic viability of our innovative solution. Moreover, in this investigation, the environmental burdens of the recycling of intact PV cells are compared to conventional recycling processes using a life cycle assessment (LCA) study. Our results show that both TEA and LCA confirm that our innovative method of intact PV cell recovery has a high techno-economic potential while offering significant environmental benefits. The analyses prove that the recovery and reuse of intact PV cells is a long-term, sustainable, and cost-effective approach that facilitates the PV technology circular economy.