PV Panel Recycling Machine

Overview

A PV panel recycling machine takes end-of-life solar modules, a laminated sandwich of glass, EVA encapsulant, silicon cells, copper ribbon and an aluminium frame, and separates them back into saleable material streams. With early-2000s solar installations now reaching end of life, recycling lines of this kind recover more than 90% of a module by mass.

Modules enter on the Conveyor System and are first stripped of hardware: the Frame Removal station uses a Sawing Unit and Gripper Arm to cut and pull the aluminium frame into the Frame Collection Bin, while the Junction Box Stripper removes the junction box and cabling.

How it works

The deframed laminate passes to the Glass Separator, where a Glass Breaker liberates the tempered front glass; a Vibrating Screen grades the cullet into the Glass Bin at better than 98% purity. The remaining polymer-cell laminate is fed by the Hopper Feeder into the Lamination Shredder, whose Rotary Mill, driven by the Mill Motor through a Screen Insert, reduces it to millimetre-scale flakes.

The Sorting System then splits the flake stream: eddy-current rotors throw out non-ferrous metal (copper ribbon, cell silver), and density separation parts silicon-rich fines from EVA and backsheet polymer. Throughout, the Air Filtration system holds dust below workplace limits, and the Control System sequences the stations and tracks throughput, with the Material Handling equipment moving the output fractions to bunkers.

Recovered aluminium and glass go straight back into smelting and float-glass feedstock; the metal-rich fines go to refiners for copper and silver recovery.