Waste photovoltaic module recycling mainly adopts three technical routes: physical disassembly, chemical treatment and thermal treatment. In commercial production, these processes are often combined to maximize material recovery efficiency.
Physical Disassembly Process
Step 1: Pre-treatment Remove outer packaging, aluminum frames and junction boxes from PV modules to retain the core laminate. Surface cleaning is applied to eliminate dust and contaminants for subsequent processing.
Step 2: Crushing The frameless PV laminates are crushed by specialized crushing equipment. The particle size is precisely controlled to avoid damaging valuable internal materials, generally crushed into fragments of several centimeters.
Step 3: Separation Multi-stage physical sorting is carried out via air classification, gravity separation, magnetic separation and electrostatic separation. Ferrous and non-ferrous metals are separated by magnetic equipment. Glass, plastic and silicon fractions are sorted according to density and weight differences by air or water separation.
Chemical Treatment Process
Step 1: Immersion PV laminates are soaked in formulated chemical reagents to dissolve the encapsulant adhesive. This weakens the bonding between glass, solar cells and other layers for easy delamination.
Step 2: Leaching Targeted leaching solutions dissolve valuable metals such as silver and aluminium from solar cells. The metal-bearing leachate is collected for further purification.
Step 3: Extraction & Refining Precious metals are separated and recovered from leachate through professional wet metallurgy and electrolytic refining processes. High-purity metal products can be obtained for remanufacturing.
Thermal Treatment Process
Step 1: High-temperature Heating PV modules are treated under high temperature of several hundred degrees Celsius. Organic plastics and encapsulant are pyrolyzed or gasified. The bonding force between glass, metals and silicon cells is reduced for separation.
Step 2: Cooling & Sorting After cooling, materials go through screening, air separation and other physical sorting units. Glass, metals and silicon materials are separated and collected respectively for reuse or further refining.
Our Supporting Recycling Solutions
We supply complete turnkey equipment and production lines matching PV recycling processes, covering physical sorting and downstream precious metal refining:
1. Complete Precious Metal Electrolytic Refining & Extraction Lines
- Gold, silver and copper electrolytic refining units: Suitable for anode slime and various precious metal-bearing scraps. Final metal purity reaches 99.99%.
- Platinum group metal recovery lines: Recover platinum (Pt), palladium (Pd), rhodium (Rh) from spent automotive three-way catalysts. Equipment for separation and purification of iridium, ruthenium and other rare precious metals.
- E-waste precious metal extraction plant: Integrated wet metallurgy and electrolytic systems for waste circuit boards and electronic scraps to recover gold, silver, platinum, palladium and copper.
2. Solid Waste & New Energy Scrap Recycling Production Lines (Machinery + Whole Plant Solution)
- Solar panel recycling plant: Self-developed physical recycling process including crushing and sorting to recover silicon materials, mixed metals and plastic fractions. Full set of PV panel disassembly and separation equipment.
Our combined PV recycling and precious metal refining system realizes full-resource utilization of waste solar modules, delivering economic benefits while meeting environmental protection requirements.
