Recycling Polycrystalline Silicon Solar Cells

Recovering Si material from the degraded solar cells is significant for environmental protection and material recycling. In this tudy, the optimal conditions for recycling degraded solar cells by chemical etching and ultrasonic cleaning were investigated. The samples were tested by EDS, SEM and XPS, The results showed that Al electrodes were completely removed from cells by reaction with 10wt% NaOH solution for 18 min, with less silicon corrosion lost. After that, Ag electrodes were completely exfoliated from the cells by ultrasonic cleaning (40 kHz) for 20 min. Si 3 N 4 film was thoroughly eliminated after the cells were etched with 40wt% HF solution for 10 min, which was proved to be the optimal reaction time. A quantitative experiment was performed in this study with 8. 9068 g cells. The results show that the recycling mass of Al electrodes, Ag electrodes and Si wafers are 1.1102 g, 0.0766 g and 7.7169 g, respectively.