Solar Panels Can Be More Efficient & Easier To Recycle
during record high temperatures and helping the EU stave off energy blackouts due to Putin’s war on Ukraine. The US government is offering multiple incentives to companies to manufacture them in America instead of China. But while solar is rapidly becoming a major source of electricity for the world, it is still a relatively young technology, with lots of room for innovations to increase the efficiency of solar panels and drive down costs.
This week brought two announcements of interest to the solar industry. One involves hybrid solar panels that are significantly more efficient than today’s conventional panels. The other involves a new way of recycling older panels. Here’s more.Conventional panels rely on silicon to convert sunlight to electricity. The theoretical limit for silicon is about 29%, meaning less than 30% of the sunlight that strikes them is turned into electricity.
Regular readers know that durability is one of the issues that has kept perovskites from full scale commercial production so far. The researchers in Germany and Switzerland are working to remove tiny defects on the surface of the perovskite layer which allow some electrons liberated by solar photons to flow back into the perovskite, rather than contributing to the cell’s electrical current and reducing its efficiency.
The researchers found that when exposed to the microwave treatment, a solar panel’s protective plastic coating softened to the point where it could be peeled off, meaning the panel could be easily delaminated and its parts retrieved without using harsh chemicals. This approach could allow recyclers to recover the high-quality glass from panels whole instead of having to crush it and sell the pieces as raw material.
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