Short-process leaching and kinetic behaviour of aluminium and silver from waste photovoltaic modules

Efficient recycling and reuse of resources are essential for global resource transformation. Researchers worldwide have focused on the proper disposal of waste photovoltaic (PV) modules produced by the rapidly developing PV industry. The utilisation of waste PV modules has high economic value and helps prevent the pollution of harmful elements in the environment to achieve sustainable development in the PV industry. This work proposes short 'rapid H2O2-H2SO4 leaching' for the efficient recovery of aluminium and silver from waste PV modules. The extraction for aluminium and silver were 99.20 % and 99.01 %, respectively. Fractal geometry method was used to modify and optimise the leaching kinetics. The fitting calculation indicated that the leaching of aluminium and silver conformed to internal diffusion-controlled process.