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The cover glass in a silicon solar panel accounts for about 2/3 of thedevice's weight. Recycling these devices at their end-of-life is fundamental toreducing the industry's environmental impact. Here we investigate the recoveryof these glass sheets by a heat-assisted mechanical process. A panel wasdelaminated, and we have utilized Fourier-transform infrared, Raman, andenergy-dispersive spectroscopies to confirm the composition of the remainingcomponents and identify aging signals. The results demonstrate that the panel'sdesign was similar to most Silicon solar panels in the market, and we concludedthat it would be feasible to recover the glass in most of these devices. Due toits chemical and mechanical strength, this glass would be ready to be reusedwithout the need to melt it again, bringing substantial savings in its energycontent and carbon emission related to its production. The glass sheet would beready to be used as cover glass in another solar panel or architecturematerial. Our estimates showed that this could be a pathway to reducing thephotovoltaic industry's carbon emissions by more than 2 million tonnes peryear.

Towards long term sustainability of c-Si solar panels: the environmental benefits of glass sheet recovery