Recycling of End of Life Photovoltaic Solar Panels and Recovery of Valuable Components: A Comprehensive Review and Experimental Validation

With the current rate of installation of photovoltaic (PV) modules, the total installed capacity is expected to reach 4500 GW by 2050. Given the average life of solar modules is 25 years, after their spent time the installed solar panels will eventually turn into waste. The waste from solar panel modules is expected to reach about 8600 tons by 2030 and it will further increase to 78 million tons by 2050. The waste solar panel should be discarded or recycled appropriately since the toxic substances released from them can affect human health and the environment. Therefore, there is a need to develop a recovery and recycling process for waste produced from solar modules. In this comprehensive work, we have summarized (i) the classification of photovoltaic technology, (ii) review the approaches embraced for photovoltaic (PV) waste management on a global level, (iii) the need for photovoltaic (PV) waste management and brief explanation on the recycling process (Mechanical, thermal, chemical and leaser methods) of solar cells. Also, experimental validation has been provided by the recovery of discrete components from End of Life (EoL) solar panels in an appropriate amount. The recovered material components from the modules were subjected to structural and chemical characterization to attest phase purity of the samples.