A group of South Korean researchers has developed a non-destructive technique that aims to recycle solar panels that no longer serve and reconvert them into Solar cells that offer high performance. Research has been going on for some time on techniques to get the most out of solar panel recycling.
A very important technique for the future
This mechanism will be vitally important in a few years when all the solar panels that are being used around the world start to stop working.
Solar panels They are made of materials such as glass, aluminum, silicon, or copper that use sunlight to generate energy. For its part, a solar cell is an electrical device which is the most important part of a solar panel.
The Korea Energy Research Institute found this technique to recycle solar panels. With it, damaged panels or panels that no longer have a useful life can be recycled to achieve a component recovery rate glass up to 100%. About 80% of other materials they can be recovered and recycled into high-performance solar cells.
The researchers were able to refine the silicon collected from 72 discarded panels into six-inch single crystal ingots and wafers. Recycled materials were used in the production of solar cells with a generation efficiency of more or less 20%. Conventional solar cells have an energy efficiency of approximately 15%.
Good for the environment
Recycling a ton of discarded solar panels has the effect of reducing more than a ton of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, this technique is vital for the future to help reduce pollution.
According to a series of information from the Korea Environment Institute, just over 27,000 tons of panels they would be discarded in the country in just over 10 years.
Korea has been investing in different forms of green energy for a long time in order to achieve by 2050 that the country has zero carbon dioxide emissions.
They exist in the Asian country almost 22,000 solar power generators They produce almost 4 gigawatts of power. It is a large amount since with one gigawatt it is possible to feed electricity to more than 300,000 houses in a year.