Solar panels recycling
Old solar panels don't end up in the rubbish tip. They are made up of a range of materials which can nearly all be recycled and reused. VIDEOGRAPHICS
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00:00For a long time, only glass was recovered from solar panels, which represents 70% of
00:11their components.
00:12Today, 94% of components are recycled, including the aluminium, plastic parts, copper, silver
00:20and crystalline silicon, which can be reused up to four times.
00:25The process involves firstly removing cables, junction boxes and the aluminium frames, which
00:30are re-melted.
00:31Then there are two possible methods to use.
00:35Grinding, where the laminated plates are cut up into small fragments, which are then separated
00:40by different technologies.
00:43The aerolic process uses compressed air to recover copper and glass.
00:49Plastics copper and the thin metal layers containing silver are separated by their density
00:54using flotation.
00:58Finally tin, copper and aluminium residues are recovered by electromagnetic treatment.
01:04The second most innovative method is delamination, which allows a higher level of purity in the
01:09recovery process.
01:11A blade heated to 300 degrees Celsius cuts the panel along its length to separate the
01:16glass from the photovoltaic cells.
01:19The cells are heated to high temperatures to separate the metals, then they undergo
01:23a chemical treatment.