The PV Lighthouse project is a Circular Economy flagship project, co-funded by Italian Minister of Environment under the PNRR with about 600k euros, to build a photovoltaic panel recycling plant with a capacity of 3000 tons/year at the Porto Marghera site. The plant, which will use the technology developed by 9-Tech, will be built and subsequently managed by a joint venture between 9-Tech, Veritas and Haiki Mines (project leader).
Project description
The project aims to recycle end-of-life photovoltaic (PV) panels to recover 87% of materials with high purity, usable as a secondary raw material, including silicon (critical raw material), through an innovative plant that will be built in the industrial area of Porto Marghera (VE).
The project, through a widespread and efficient collection of PVs, will give life to a circular eco-district, a national showcase also through the brand ” Venice world capital of sustainability”,able to treat 3.000 t/y of material and recover approx. 350 t of aluminum, 2.000 t of glass, 24 t of copper ribbons and 84 t of PV cells.
The activities will make it possible to improve the waste collection of panels in the Northeast area (provinces of Venice, Treviso, and Padua) that is poorly served by specialized consortia and where there is still a lack of dedicated plants for recycling this waste. IThe project involves the construction from scratch of a high automation and energy efficiency plant, based on 9-Tech technology with two European patents behind it.
The plant will include 3 main parts:
- automatic machinery for panel type recognition, disassembly of the aluminum frame and junction boxes;
- EVA resin removal furnace with patented process;
- and mechanical separation with patented method of copper strips, glass, and photovoltaic cells.
In addition, an experimental chemical plant with a capacity of up to 6t/year for chemical treatment of photovoltaic cells will be set up within the adjacent Research Center in order to study silver recovery on a pilot scale. Activities will include authorization for the plant; site preparation with infrastructure within the Eco-district, plant installation and testing and optimization.
Here is the page on the Haiki Mines website:
The other projects on PV recycling
The innovative process for recovering materials from photovoltaic panels tested on a pilot scale.
Parsival and EVERPV: our European projects on the recycling of photovoltaic waste.
