Photovoltaics are decidedly the poster-child for an energy revolution with dominating mainstream exposure.
While photovoltaics has existed for over 70 years, its adoption as a potentially significant contributor to energy needs has only started to ramp up in the last 10 to 15 years. With such a recent market boom, most attention has been focused on production and deployment, which has grown exponentially in the last decade.
But these products will turn into waste when the end of their lifespan will be reached. We expect an annual tonnage of end of lifecycle modules of 20.000 t in 2020 that will need to be recycled.
There is an urgent need to establish a photovoltaic waste recycling circular economy with both an economic and an environmental incentive: a double green effect for production scraps as an immediate need and for used photovoltaic modules as an increasing necessity for the upcoming 10 to 15 years.
This is the objective of the European Union funded project CABRISS which started in 2015 ( http://www.spire2030.eu/cabriss/ )
This project is coordinated by CEA ( http://www.cea-tech.fr/ ) INES ( http://www.ines-solaire.org/ ) in France and associates 16 partners in Europe.
The main vision of the CABRISS project is to develop a circular economy mainly for the photovoltaic, but also for the electronic and glass industry. It will consist of the implementation of recycling technologies to recover indium, silicone and silver for the sustainable photovoltaic technologies and other applications – and a solar cell processing roadmap, which will use silicone waste for the high throughput, cost-effective manufacturing of hybrid silicone based solar cells and will demonstrate the possibility for reusability and recyclability at the end of lifespan of photovoltaic key materials.
The developed silicone solar cells will have the specificity to have a low environmental impact by implementing low carbon footprint technologies, and as a consequence, the technology will present a low energy payback (about 1 year).
The originality of the project relates to the cross-sectorial approach associating together different sectors such as the powder metallurgy, the photovoltaic industry and the recycling industry with a common aim: Make use of recycled waste materials.
CABRISS focuses mainly on a photovoltaic production value chain, thus demonstrating the cross-sectorial industrial symbiosis with closed-loop processes.
https://ec.europa.eu/easme/en/communication-toolkit
Music by Fabian Pollack http://niftys.klingt.org/
Produced by TU Wien
CC Footage:
drone_test_windy_hd_stock_video.mp4 by http://www.Videezy.com
Indium https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Indium.jpg
Silicon https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SiliconCroda.jpg
Silver https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silver_crystal.jpg
Electronic Industry https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silego_clock_generator.JPG
SUDI https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ombrière_SUDI_-_Sustainable_Urban_Design_%26_Innovation.jpg
Post time: Feb-10-2017