Recovery of silicon and metal contacts as part of the recycling of photovoltaic modules

Current recycling strategies applied to photovoltaic (PV) modules have not yet solved the issue of effectively reusing and reconditioning their active part, namely the solar cells. This paper presents first results in the research carried out within the RESILIENS project to develop a cost-effective and environmentally meaningful technological recycling process for silicon solar cells that allows the recovery and reutilization of silicon and precious metals. On the one hand, demetallization of two different silicon solar cell technologies has been successfully realized via an alkaline route, optimizing process conditions. On the other hand, fragments of old silicon wafers have been successfully recrystallized, and the resulting wafers show resistivities and charge carrier lifetimes after a phosphorus diffusion gettering compatible with further high efficiency solar cell processing.