A solar system on a mountainside collapsed on July 3, 2018 in Cheongdo County in North Gyeongsang Province, 325 kilometers southeast of Seoul.
SEOUL, Aug 20 (Korea Bizwire) – The Korea Institute of Energy Research announced on Thursday that its research team had succeeded in developing a highly efficient solar cell from old solar modules.
Solar modules consist of glass, aluminum, silicon and copper, 80 percent of which can be recycled using appropriate recovery technology.
The recycling technology developed by the research team includes the automatic dismantling of frames and junction boxes, the separation of high-purity glass, the recovery of valuable metals and the reconstruction of the solar module.
The core technology lies in the separation of glass and encapsulation from the solar panel with a recovery rate of almost 100 percent.
The technology only needs a third of the electricity used by other processes. Since it is not a mixture of separate parts and materials, high purity glass can be recovered efficiently.
The research team processed the silicon obtained from the old panels into 6-inch ingots and wafers, from which a solar battery with 20.05 percent efficiency is created.
"We can recycle a ton of solar panels to cut 1,200 kilograms of carbon dioxide," said Lee Jin-seok, a researcher at the Korea Institute of Energy Research.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)