EARTH

[21001-14-11] Review on Polysilicon Value Chain for End-of-life Silicon-based Solar PV Recycling

○Thitisak Boonpramote¹ (1. Chulalongkorn University)

Chairman：Thitisak Boonpramote（Chulalongkorn University）, Tsuyoshi Adachi (Akita University)

Keywords:Polysilicon, End-of-life Solar PV, Solar PV Recycling

The decline in the cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) module over the past decade provides a new course for the role of solar electricity in Thailand’s energy sector. The Alternative Energy Development Plan (AEDP) for Thailand mandates the share of renewable energy increase to 20% of the total installed capacity by 2036, and the economics increasingly tips the balance in favor of promoting solar electricity as a major way to meet this target. However, as PV modules have a technical life time of 20–30 years and constructions of most of the PV installations started in the 2000s, a significant amount of disposed PV modules can be expected in the next decade and therefore End-of-Life (EoL) of PV products is becoming more and more important.

Silicon wafer-based PV module has been the dominant type for the supply of power modules into photovoltaic application. This paper reviews the recent advances in chemical and metallurgical routes for polysilicon production and its value chain in order to identify the feasible PV module recycling pathways.