Solar panels recycling

Old solar panels don't end up in the rubbish tip. They are made up of a range of materials which can nearly all be recycled and reused. VIDEOGRAPHICS

Transcript

00:00 [Music plays]

00:05 For a long time, only glass was recovered from solar panels,

00:09 which represents 70% of their components.

00:12 Today, 94% of components are recycled,

00:16 including the aluminium, plastic parts, copper, silver, and crystalline silicon,

00:21 which can be reused up to four times.

00:24 The process involves firstly removing cables, junction boxes,

00:29 and the aluminium frames, which are re-melted.

00:32 Then there are two possible methods to use.

00:35 Grinding, where the laminated plates are cut up into small fragments,

00:39 which are then separated by different technologies.

00:42 The aerolic process uses compressed air to recover copper and glass.

00:48 Plastics, copper, and the thin metal layers containing silver

00:52 are separated by their density using flotation.

00:58 Finally, tin, copper, and aluminium residues

01:01 are recovered by electromagnetic treatment.

01:04 The second most innovative method is delamination,

01:07 which allows a higher level of purity in the recovery process.

01:11 A blade heated to 300 degrees Celsius cuts the panel along its length

01:15 to separate the glass from the photovoltaic cells.

01:19 The cells are heated to high temperatures to separate the metals,

01:23 then they undergo a chemical treatment.

01:25 [music]

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01:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]