Major U.S. solar developer announces recycling plans
EDF Renewables North America signs on with Solarcycle to recycle damaged or broken solar panels.
How are solar panels made, and how are they recycled?
Gigawatts of solar farms are being installed throughout the world. But have you ever wondered how solar panels are manufactured and how they are recycled?
Solar panel waste is not a significant problem
Solar panel waste will not be a problem because there is so little of it. However, there is a short-term problem in some places because panel deployment is growing fast and recycling is playing catch up.
Recycling solar panels via supercritical water tech
A Brazilian research group has developed a new method that uses the unique properties of supercritical water to recycle end-of-life solar panels. The scientists claim the novel approach is able to achieve a 99.6% organic degradation, without using toxic or hazardous chemicals.
Enabling India’s self-reliance in lithium battery-grade materials
Attero Recycling, India’s largest e-waste and lithium-ion battery recycler, recently processed samples from the Jammu and Kashmir mining belt and was able to recover 200 PPM (parts per million) of lithium carbonate, which was close to the ballpark range shared by the government of India. Nitin Gupta, chief executive officer and co-founder of Attero Recycling, speaks to pv magazine about the significance of their extraction and refining methods in ensuring India’s self-reliance in critical battery-grade materials.
Ecoreco to start lithium battery recycling
E-waste recycler Eco Recycling (Ecoreco) will use the technology developed by the Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (CMET), under India’s Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), to recover valuable elements from end-of-life lithium batteries.
Borosil Renewables mulling solar module recycling
Solar glass manufacturer Borosil Renewables is seeking technology partners to develop and scale its PV module recycling initiative.
RecycleKaro invests INR 100 crore to set up nickel metal facility in Maharashtra
Maharashtra-based RecycleKaro will set up a plant to produce nickel metal from scrap lithium-ion batteries and nickel hydroxide. The plant is set for commissioning by December end and is expected to produce 1,200 tonnes of nickel metal annually.
New technique to recover lead in end-of-life solar panels
A research group in the United States has developed a process to recover lead in its metallic form so that it can be reused in the PV industry. The process relies on a leaching solution based on a combination of acetic acid (CH3COOH) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), which the researchers said leaches the lead ‘in a matter of minutes.’
France recycled 3,800 tons of solar modules in 2022
French eco-organization Soren, which collects and recycles end-of-life solar panels, has published its 2022 annual report. Last year, more than 10 million solar panels were put on the market in France, up 25% from 2021.
