Title:	Recycling and Reusing of Silver from Waste Solar Cells via Electroplating
Author(s):	R. Deng, P. Dias, M. Lunardi, S. Wang, J. Ji, C.M. Chong
Topic:	Photovoltaic Modules and BoS Components
Subtopic:	Sustainability and Recycling
Event:	38th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition
Session:	4DV.2.14
ISBN:	3-936338-78-7
Price:	0,00 EUR
Document(s):	poster

Abstract/Summary:

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The volume of end-of-life photovoltaic modules will increase exponentially in the next decades. Researchers have developed different recycling technologies to recover valuable materials from waste modules. Among all the valuable components, silver is the most expensive and scarce material. A novel electroplating technique has been developed to recycle silver from waste solar cells and use recycled silver to fabricate new solar cells. It is found that the removal yield is mainly limited by the applied bias, while the recovery yield is mainly influenced by the current density. Furthermore, this paper proposed a new approach to using recycled silver in fabricating silver-plated contacts for new solar cells.