Near future
Contact us
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • Energy
  • Transportation
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • Gadgets
  • Italy Next
  • H+
August 11 2022

Coronavirus / Russia-Ukraine

Near future

News to understand, anticipate, improve the future.

No Result
View All Result

News to understand, anticipate, improve the future.

Read in:  Chinese (Simplified)EnglishFrenchGermanItalianJapanesePortugueseRussianSpanish

From solar to thermoelectric, the new 'reincarnation' of exhausted panels

Another point in favor of photovoltaics: exhausted panels can find new life by becoming thermoelectric material. A 'reincarnation' that will still make them useful for gathering energy.

Gianluca Ricciodi Gianluca Riccio
in Energy
SharePin1TweetSendShareShareShare
solar thermoelectric panels

The Singapore team develops new technology that recycles old expired solar panels into electrical materials for collecting heat. Credits: NTU Singapore

July 2 2022
⚪ Reads in 3 minutes
A A

The worldwide waste produced by the silicon present in decommissioned solar panels increases hand in hand with the increase in the use of solar energy and the arrival at the 'end of life' of exhausted solar panels (the best last about 30 years). While precious metals like silver and copper are often recycled, the silicon that makes up most of the solar cells ends up in landfills. And it is not easy, to put it mildly, to recycle silicon: it has impurities and defects that prevent it from being reused for new solar cells. What's now?

A team of scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has transformed this limit into a strength. How? Developing a technology capable of transforming old solar panels into a new high-performance thermoelectric material. A material that collects heat and converts it into electricity.

From solar to thermoelectric, panels 'reincarnate'

I find NTU's approach ingenious in its simplicity. Instead of trying to put the genie back into the lamp to get the solar panels back to their original use, take advantage of the contrasting qualities of thermoelectricity. And it hits the mark, because for a thermoelectric use impurities and defects improve performance, rather than hinder them.

The article continues after the related links

Carlsberg tests wood fiber beer bottles. Better than glass? Mmm

Philippines, the largest solar park in the world cuts 1,4 million tons of coal

Plastic recycling, shock report: "it doesn't work, and it will never work"

Create 'renewable' or rather 'perpetual' bio photovoltaic cells

To achieve this, the researchers first crushed the solar cells using ball grinding technology. This enhanced their thermoelectric characteristics such as power conversion and cooling efficiency. The second phase saw the addition of phosphorus and germanium powder and high heat processing, with the method of spark plasma sintering.

panels
The thermoelectric "reincarnation" of exhausted solar panels is a new point in favor of photovoltaics, which is increasingly cheaper.

The results

The team developed a sample that offers the most optimized thermoelectric performance, with a record thermoelectric figure of merit (zT): 0,45 at 873 K, the highest among elemental silicon thermoelectric materials.

“By leveraging our resource recovery techniques we have shown that spent solar panels can produce high-quality, valuable materials. Materials useful in the production of renewable energy components such as high-performance thermoelectric ones, which collect heat and transform it into electricity ", says the co-author of the research (I link it to you here), the Associate Professor Nripan Mathews.

The next step? Bringing this technology to large-scale upcycling of waste silicon as well. In this way it can be used for high temperature energy harvesting applications such as converting waste heat generated by industrial processes to electricity.

Another point in favor of the Solar.

tags: PVrecycling
Previous post

The first CRISPR therapy arrives in 2023: it will hit thalassemia and rare blood diseases

Next Post

2050, 1 billion climate refugees. How to manage (or avoid) the great exodus

COLLABORATE

To submit articles, disclose the results of a research or scientific discoveries write to the editorial staff
  • Levitation device lifts building materials

    Levitation device lifts building materials

    4726 Shares
    Share 1890 Tweet 1181
  • Goodbye manual gearbox: the future of the car is marked

    1235 Shares
    Share 494 Tweet 309
  • Sentient or not? It is the least of the problems that AI will give us. Watch out for functions

    1048 Shares
    Share 419 Tweet 262
  • 30 minutes of sunshine and the self-healing coating repairs car scratches

    554 Shares
    Share 221 Tweet 138
  • Kubota, the glasses that cure myopia begin retail

    538 Shares
    Share 215 Tweet 135

archive

Have a look here:

Pesticide purifier
Environment

Garrnish, purifier that removes harmful pesticides from your food

A home pesticide purifier? The world has turned bad, and Garrnish (that's his name) can be a ...

Read More
Electric vehicle emergency: the entire energy network must be designed

Electric vehicle emergency: the entire energy network must be designed

Earthquake

Move on towards earthquake predictions

moon oxygen

The moon has enough oxygen for 8 billion people for 100.000 years

Breast cancer, vaccine ready in 8 years

Breast cancer, vaccine ready in 8 years

The daily tomorrow

Futuroprossimo.it provides news on the future of technology, science and innovation: if there is something that is about to arrive, here it has already arrived. FuturoProssimo is part of the network ForwardTo, studies and skills for future scenarios.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Environment
Architecture
Artificial intelligence
Gadgets
concepts
Design

Staff
Archives
Advertising
Privacy Policy

Medicine
Spazio
Robotica
Work
Transportation
Energy

To contact the FuturoProssimo editorial team, write to [email protected]

Chinese Version
Édition Française
Deutsche Ausgabe
Japanese version
English Edition
Edição Portuguesa
Русское издание
Spanish edition

This work is distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
© 2021 Futuroprossimo

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • Energy
  • Transportation
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • Gadgets
  • Italy Next
  • H+