The thermomechanical treatment
The experimentation began with a 2020 EIT RawMaterials Booster project, which launched the design of 9-Tech’s experimental photovoltaic panel recycling plant.
The plant, designed and built in 2020 and substantially modified and expanded in the following years, performs a thermal and mechanical treatment on the panels in order to recover the basic materials they are made of.
The technology is protected by several European patents and employs a much more efficient and advantageous process than the previous process studied during the ReSiELP project.
The 9PV facility is housed at the Veritas Group’s Green Propulsion Lab, a platform funded by the Ministry of the Environment as part of the revitalization of Porto Marghera in Venice, which researches green technologies and hosts several innovative startups, such as 9-Tech. We also discuss this in this interview.
The experimental plant was authorised by the Veneto Region with decree no. 183 of 4 July 2022 and has demonstrated a processing capacity of 30 kg/h of panels.
The tests began on 7 November 2022 with the receipt of the first panels to be treated (about 360 kg), and since then the actual experimental activity has started and is still ongoing. The plant has already proven to have very high energy efficiency and the ability to recover materials in a form pure enough to be reused as secondary raw material.
The pilot plant:
(data from the entire testing campaign, concluded on January 12, 2024)
kg of treated PV panels
kg of glass
kg of aluminum
kg of silicon cells
kg of junction boxes
kg of powders
of copper ribbons
Silver recovery
The photovoltaic cells recovered using the experimental system are made of silicon, aluminum, and silver. Silver is by far the material with the highest specific value within a photovoltaic panel; therefore, a treatment was developed that utilizes the mechanical action of ultrasound and environmentally friendly reagents for its recovery.
In January 2023, a patent application was filed for the process.
The development of this part of the treatment was made possible by winning the first prize from InactionESG awarded by Intesa SanPaolo Vita and Fideuram Vita in 2022.
