A bright future for silicon solar cell recycling

Many current technologies to recycle silicon solar cells involve breaking the silicon wafers upon removal from the panel. Once removed, the wafers are typically stripped of their impurities using hydrofluoric acid. As well as being harmful to the environment, hydrofluoric acid can penetrate deep into human tissue causing severe burns and even death after contact with the skin.

Nochang Park and his colleagues at the Korea Electronics Technology Institute and the Korea Interfacial Science and Engineering Institute have developed a sustainable process to reclaim silicon wafers from old solar panels and used the salvaged silicon to build new solar cells.

This article provides a link to coverage by Chemistry World.