A facile crush-and-sieve treatment for recycling end-of-life photovoltaics.
Waste Manag
; 156: 97-106, 2023 Feb 01.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36455454
The shift towards renewable energy mix has resulted in an exponential growth of the photovoltaic (PV) industry over the past few decades. Parallelly, new recycling technology developments are required to address the incoming volume of waste as they gradually approach their end-of-life (EoL) to realize the concept of a circular economy. Typical recycling processes involve high-temperature burning for separation and release of the PV cells for metal recovery processes. However, this thermal process generates gaseous by-products that cause serious health and environmental issues. Eschewing the need for burning, we demonstrate a simple crush-and-sieve methodology to strategically aids the separation of polymeric and metallic contents. The proposed approach showcased the efficient size-selective separation and generated polymer- and metal-rich fractions. More than 90 % of the total polymer present within the studied wastes was found to be retained in larger sized-particle fractions (F1 and F2). Metal content analysis highlighted the enrichment of highly valuable silver into the smallest sized-particle fraction (F4), accounting up to 70 % and 80 % of total silver present respectively for EVAc and MP. The benefits ripe through this simple crush-and-sieve method offers an attractive pathway for PV recycling process to obtain metal-rich fractions and allow focused recovery of valuable materials through an environmentally friendlier manner.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Plata
/
Residuos Electrónicos
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Waste Manag
Asunto de la revista:
SAUDE AMBIENTAL
/
TOXICOLOGIA
Año:
2023
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Singapur
Pais de publicación:
Estados Unidos