Photovoltaic Panel Recycling Kinetics (2D)

Recycling Process

Process method

Process temperature 500 °C

Batch size 20 panels

Process time 0.0 min

Live Recovery

Overall mass recovered

0.0%

Value recovered / panel

$0.00

Batch value so far

Elapsed time

0.0 min

Glass

Aluminum

Silicon

Silver

How it works

A crystalline-silicon module is roughly 76% glass, 8% aluminum frame, 10% silicon cells + wiring and a trace (~0.05%) of silver screen-print contacts by mass, bound together by an EVA encapsulant. Each material stream is freed at a different rate depending on the process used, and each stream follows first-order recovery kinetics:

R(t) = R_max · (1 − e^(−k·t))

The rate constant k for the thermal (EVA pyrolysis) and chemical (silver leach) steps follows the Arrhenius law, so raising the process temperature speeds recovery exponentially:

k(T) = A · e^(−Ea / (R·T))
Pyrolysis:  Ea ≈ 44.6 kJ/mol
Ag leach:   Ea ≈ 56.8 kJ/mol   (only active in "Full loop")

Mechanical only — glass and the aluminum frame separate cleanly and fast (k is temperature-independent here), but without pyrolysis the silicon cells stay glued to the glass/EVA and mostly end up crushed into low-value cullet (R_max ≈ 15%); silver is essentially lost (R_max ≈ 5%).
Thermal pyrolysis — burning off the EVA at process temperature frees intact silicon wafers (R_max ≈ 90%), but the silver busbars stay embedded in the freed cells until they are chemically leached.
Full loop — adds a nitric-acid leach step that recovers up to 85% of the silver, which by itself can be worth more than every other material stream combined despite being <0.1% of panel mass.
Batch size and process time scale how many panels have run through the line and how far along the kinetics curve each stream sits. The top panel is a schematic top-down sorting line: drag left/right on it to scrub process time directly. The bottom panel plots R(t) for all four streams against the Arrhenius rate law, with a moving marker at the current time.

Glass bin Aluminum bin Silicon bin Silver bin

⇔ drag to scrub time