An environmentally friendly process for Si recovery from end-of-life photovoltaic panels: Green swelling and mechanical crushing

The rapid growth in the installation of photovoltaic (PV) panels has made the recycling of end-of-life PV panels an urgent concern. Mechanical crushing is a promising approach for separating various components. However, the separation of glass and silicon powder remains challenging. This paper proposes an environmentally friendly process by combining green solvent swelling and mechanical crushing for glass separation and silicon enrichment from PV panels. The ethyl acetate was successfully used to separate glass from PV panels for the first time. Complete separation of glass was achieved under the optimal conditions (60 °C, 60 min, 8 ml/g, 120 W). The PV panels without glass were then crushed mechanically under shear force. The silicon was enriched to −0.25 mm with a recovery rate of 73.30 % and purity of 88.71 %. This study provides a new option for glass and silicon recovery from waste PV panels, which shows significant potential for industrial application.