Review on feasible recycling pathways and technologies of solar photovoltaic modules

Abstract Given the rapid increase in production and installation of PV systems, recycling of PV modules is becoming more and more important. In this paper, three types of recycling pathways from perspectives of close-loop life cycle, which are manufacturing waste recycling, disposed module remanufacturing and recycling, are investigated. For each pathway, proven technologies are presented and their advantages and drawbacks are described. The results show that recycling technologies for PV manufacturing wastes and end-of-life modules are wildly explored and some are commercially available, although the challenges still remain in process efficiency, reduction in process complexity, energy requirements, and use of chemicals. Some research has been conducted on remanufacturing and reuse of PV modules. The ease-to-disassembly design may improve the reusability of valuable components. It is also found that though studies showed that PV module manufacturing waste recycling and end-of-life module recycling have significant positive impacts on the reducing environment loads, economic viability of PV module recycling is still unfavorable and policies are needed to encourage producer responsibility not only in the PV manufacturing sector but also in the entire energy industry, and an efficient collection network should be important to the economic viability of PV module recycling business.