From pv magazine Global
Japanese glass, chemicals, and materials manufacturer AGC said it will collaborate with solar PV equipment manufacturer NPC Incorporated to promote the recycling of solar panel cover glass and its use as part of the raw material used in the production of architectural flat glass.
As part of establishing the recycling scheme, AGC said it had provided advice on equipment specifications and supported the development of a logistics network to facilitate efficient cullet collection.
It confirmed that NPC’s patented solar panel disassembly equipment for separating the solar cells and removing the residual ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) material without breaking the glass meets the stringent AGC quality standards.
“This enables recyclers to adopt NPC’s equipment and sell high-quality recycled glass to AGC,” the company said.
It further noted that, in September, it had used 20 tonnes of cullet processed by this method as part of the raw materials to manufacture figured glass at its Yokohama Technical Center.
Other methods, such as pyrolysis and high-pressure water jet technologies, were also mentioned as suitable for this type of recycling of solar panel cover glass.
In a separate release, NPC said that it aims to “expand the sales of its solar panel recycling machine and promote the realisation of solar panel recycling.”
The collaboration between the two companies is for Japan and overseas, according to the AGC announcement.
The glass recycling initiative is part of a project commissioned by Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO).
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.