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Featured in A grip on cells – 10-2026

End-of-life is just the beginning

After decommissioning, a used solar module can take hundreds of different pathways. Different policies, technologies, and capabilities make each recycling process one of a kind. And the optimal route can differ greatly depending on regional issues and other factors.
Lior Kahana
By
Lior Kahana
Galloo Halluin produced this recovered metallic fraction during PV-module processing in France. | Image: Soren

By weight, recycling a solar module can look deceptively simple. Separate the glass and get it to a specialist recycler, and you’re already 70% of the way there. The small quantities of silver and other valuable materials wrapped up in a module are much harder to recover. This creates a problem: a high recycling rate …

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