I don't know what they are writing about. PV wafer reclaim has been around for at least a decade, at least in China.
Reclaiming a cell is as easy as polishing off its surface layer, which contains most of defects, and resurfacing it.
A much more crude method just heats up the cell to the temperature where most defects from solar radiation disappear, but not hot enough for dopants to start diffusing more than they should, and then reselling it as a lower spec cell.
Your comment made me wonder something: how delicate are solar panels? Like, if a hailstorm hits a town with solar panels, will they be completely destroyed?
The cells themselves are very delicate, much of the job of the panel is to protect the cells. Construction can vary, but generally they are designed to withstand normal weather events, just like a roof is. That said, weather can occasionally exceed those design limitations.
Large hail can break through a polycarbonate skylight or the tempered glass of a car, it’ll do the same to a solar panel covered in the same.
seems they're likely damaged by hail roughly the size of a golf ball, but in the link above they point to an example where 2.75in diameter hail did little damage to panels at NREL.
It's "size of golfball" hail that makes me wonder if shielding the solar panel with 40mm wire mesh (often called chicken wire) is worth the solar efficiency loss.
One thing about Climate Change is: more energy in the system means worse extreme events, and the less extreme events more often. But when is the cut over point?
I thought that as well, but then I thought "well car windshields can be busted by hail, so maybe there is just insurance, like we have for cars". By the replies I've gotten, looks like that's not the case!
Silicon cells are quite brittle, think like very thin dry pasta with a metallic cling. You can find pieces sold in lots on ebay, mostly due to operator error when soldering them.
> A: Solar panel wastes include heavy metals such as silver, copper, lead, arsenic, cadmium, selenium that at certain levels may be classified as hazardous wastes.
> Q: What does data show? What are the constituents that make the panels hazardous?
> A: In general, data shows that older silicon panels may be hazardous due to lead solder. Some older silicon panels are hazardous for hexavalent chromium coatings. Cadmium tellurium (CdTe) panels are typically hazardous due to the cadmium. Gallium arsenide (GaAs) panels may be hazardous due to the arsenic. Thin film panels, such as copper indium gallium selenide (CIS/CIGS) panels, may be hazardous due to the copper and/or selenium.
> Q: What about electronic components associated with the solar panels? What are they hazardous for?
> A: The electronic components associated with the solar panels (e.g. drivers, inverters, circuit boards) contain all of the common electronic device hazardous constituents such as lead, arsenic, cadmium, selenium, and chromium.
> A: Solar panel wastes include heavy metals such as silver, copper, lead, arsenic, cadmium, selenium that at certain levels may be classified as hazardous wastes.
Note that this is grouping together ALL kinds of cells, particularly cadmium telluride. These cells -especially gallium-based cells- are a small or tiny minority of solar panels.
The vast majority of solar panels do not contain any of these except copper and lead. Lead is actively in the process of removal, but the plan is to do so over the next decade or so. Regardless roughly 2000x more lead is used to make car batteries:
Are there even any substances known to the state of California to not cause cancer? Air, salt, and all sugars fats and alcohols from things which consume air, are a bit radioactive.
The obvious use to recycle silicon cells is to replace metallurgical silicon (which is far less pure) in the feed to the production of trichlorosilane. Failing that, just melt it with aluminum in the production of silicon-aluminum alloys.
Reclaiming a cell is as easy as polishing off its surface layer, which contains most of defects, and resurfacing it.
A much more crude method just heats up the cell to the temperature where most defects from solar radiation disappear, but not hot enough for dopants to start diffusing more than they should, and then reselling it as a lower spec cell.