DEVELOPMENT OF A THREE DIMENSIONAL INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION LINE SIMULATION FOR CRYSTALLINE SILICON PHOTOVOLTAIC PANEL RECYCLING

Power generation from photovoltaic (PV) cells is a well-established and promising technology that takes full advantage of solar energy, which is a renewable energy source. Although numerous methods of PV recycling have been proposed worldwide, Greece has not taken any serious corresponding action until now. In global scale, the largest market share (≈90%) is based on c-Si as a semiconductor for the PV cells. Moreover, estimations expect that the overall quantity of PV waste in Europe will reach 3.500.000 tones until 2040 while in Greece, until 2038 the amount will be in the range of 264.000 tones. As a result, it is essential to propose a unified management of PV end-of-life (EOL) process, in order to achieve a successful recovery of materials such as silicon, aluminum, silver and glass. The scope of this paper is the simulation of an integrated c-Si PV recycling process, applicable to the industrial level, with the use of CATIA software. The design of this recycling process is parametric, in order to allow the location and sizing configuration of each machine and installation type that can be used.