Materials (Apr 2023)

Photovoltaic Glass Waste Recycling in the Development of Glass Substrates for Photovoltaic Applications

  • Karina Treviño Rodríguez,
  • Astrid Iriana Sánchez Vázquez,
  • Juan Jacobo Ruiz Valdés,
  • Jorge Ibarra Rodríguez,
  • María Guadalupe Paredes Figueroa,
  • Samuel Porcar García,
  • Juan Bautista Carda Castelló,
  • Anabel Álvarez Méndez

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16072848
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 16, no. 7
p. 2848

Abstract

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Because of the increasing demand for photovoltaic energy and the generation of end-of-life photovoltaic waste forecast, the feasibility to produce glass substrates for photovoltaic application by recycling photovoltaic glass waste (PVWG) material was analyzed. PVWG was recovered from photovoltaic house roof panels for developing windows glass substrates; PVWG was used as the main material mixed with other industrial waste materials (wSG). The glass was casted by air quenching, annealed, and polished to obtain transparent substrates samples. Fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) was deposited as back contact on the glass substrates by spray pyrolysis. The chemical composition of the glass materials was evaluated by X-ray fluorescence (XRF), the thermal stability was measured by differential thermal analysis (DTA) and the transmittance was determined by UV-VIS spectroscopy. The surface of the glass substrates and the deposited FTO were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), the amorphous or crystalline state of the specimens were determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the sheet resistance was evaluated by the four-point probe method. The sheet resistance of the deposited FTO on the wSG substrate was 7.84 ± 3.11 Ω/□, lower than that deposited on commercial soda-lime glass (8.48 ± 3.67 Ω/□), meaning that this material could present improved conduction of the produced electrons by the photovoltaic effect. This process may represent an alternative to produce glass substrates from waste materials that could be destined for photovoltaic applications, especially the production of ecological photovoltaic windows.

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