Project PHOTORAMA: Photovoltaic waste management – Advanced technologies for recovery and recycling of secondary raw materials from end-of-life modules.

Since the last decades, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) have been drastically increasing in Europe, particularly for recent technologies such as Photovoltaic (PV) devices. These products are designed as complex sandwiches, which make the recovery of the critical (Si, In, Ga) and precious (Ag) raw materials encapsulated in the layers extremely challenging. 

The overall objective of PHOTORAMA is to draw up a profitable and sustainable circular value chain that will lead to a carbon neutral PV industry. PHOTORAMA aims to develop and demonstrate the industrial prospective of recycling solutions to recover and recycle all the materials ‘components from End-of-life PV panels. A complementary consortium of 13 European companies and research institutes has built the framework of PHOTORAMA as follow:

(1) the development of innovative processes and technologies from TRL4-5 to TRL7 to establish a sound recycling scheme to increase significantly resource efficiency with decisive cost-cutting solutions. The implementation of automated disassembly and sandwich opening as layer separation enabling high recovery (> 95%) of secondary raw materials: Ag, Si and In, Ga from EoL PV panels (crystalline silicon, thin films);

(2) the full-circularity approach emphasised from collection to marketable new products from Si, In, Ga, Ag, glass mainly for PV manufacturing;

(3) the demonstration of the business viability and attractiveness of its technological solutions as one of the most competitive perspective for PV recycling.

PHOTORAMA aims to strengthen this ambitious model with environmental impacts assessments and a strategic dissemination and exploitation plan supported by a strong effort for raising societal awareness. The implementation of PHOTORAMA recycling scheme would unlock already more than 100.000 tons of valuable secondary raw materials by 2030.

Our main tasks

• PHOTORAMA Pilot Line requirements
• PHOTORAMA Pilot Line digital twin
• PHOTORAMA Pilot Line qualification
• Integrated pilot engineering design

Partners

CEA | DFD – DENSE FLUID DEGREASING | ENEA | ENERL GREEN POWER | IDENER.AI | LUXCHEMTECH | MALTHA | MONDRAGON ASSEMBLY | RPH TECHNOLOGY | SINTEF | SOREN | ZSI

Start date – finish date

05 / 2021 - 04 / 2024