CABRISS: pioneering reusing and recovering Indium, Silicon and Silver materials for photovoltaic industry and other applications

CABRISS
Type of organisation or company
Country
Other (Norway)
Language for original content
Project elaborated in partnership
Yes
Expertise in technology, medicine and the social sciences
Scope
Submitted by
Alexander Ulyashin
Start/End date
to
Ongoing
No
Type of funding
Alexander Ulyashin
Description

Photovoltaics (PV) has existed for over 70 years. Still, its adoption as a potentially significant contributor to energy needs has boomed over the last 10-15 years. Since the inception of this technology in the '80s, the total PV products throughout Europe now represent roughly 8 million tons of future PV waste.

Although guaranteed up to 25 years, PV installations are often replaced before their theoretical end of life. The dismantled raw material coming from production scraps and end-of-life products, inserted into an industrial recycling process, gives way to a new life circle in the market.

The EU-funded CABRISS project aims at pioneering a circular economy dedicated to handling the critical situation of recycling the considerable amount of photovoltaic waste for the photovoltaic, but also for the electronic and glass industry.

Main results
  • Three sources of silicon (Si) waste have been processed at SINTEF: broken silicon wafers, broken cells with anti-reflection coatings, and dry powders from Si kerf.
  • In collaboration with RHP, SINTEF has demonstrated that ingots - size up to 156x156 mm2 - made from recycled silicon powders by hot pressing, can be sliced into +/- 170 µm wafers through wire sawing.
  • Several ingots from different types of recycled silicon have been produced by conventional crystallization.
  • In collaboration with pyrogenesis, silicon wafer equivalents have been directly processed by thermal spraying of silicon powders onto supporting Si wafers manufactured at SINTEF.
  • <17% efficiency was achieved in Aluminium-BSF solar cells made by SoliTek on recycled silicon multi-c wafers manufactured at SINTEF.