A circular economy for Photovoltaic waste - the vision of the European project CABRISS

Abstract

Growing Photovoltaic (PV) panel waste causes a new environmental challenge, but on the other hand opportunities to create value and new economic paths. The main vision of the European project CABRISS “Implementation of a circular economy based on recycling, reused and recovered indium, silicon and silver materials for photovoltaic and other applications” is to develop a circular economy mainly for the photovoltaic, but also for electronic and glass industry. CABRISS bundles the efforts of 16 European companies and research institutions. The project consists in the development of: (i) recycling technologies to recover In, Ag and Si for the sustainable PV technology and other applications; (ii) a solar cell processing roadmap, which will use Si waste for the high throughput, cost-effective manufacturing of hybrid Si based solar cells and will demonstrate the possibility for the reusability and recyclability at the end of life of key PV materials. From the begin the CABRISS consortium decided to have all results in accordance with valid European standards to ease access to market.