In a new comprehensive literature review, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) discovered that alternatives to recycling may have untapped potential to build an effective circular economy for solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery technologies. These alternative strategies, such as reducing the use of new materials in manufacturing, reusing them for new applications, and extending product life, can provide new avenues for building sustainable product life cycles.
These insights come after an analysis of more than 3,000 scientific publications examining the life cycle of the most common PV and lithium-ion battery technologies, including starting materials, environmental impacts, and life-ending options. The NREL researchers investigated 10 possible paths to a circular economy. The findings highlight key insights, gaps and opportunities for research and implementation of a circular economy for PV and battery technologies, including strategies currently underutilized.
Demand for PV panels and lithium-ion batteries is expected to increase as the United States moves away from fossil fuels and deploys more clean energy. Creating a robust circular economy for these technologies can reduce the demand for starting materials and reduce waste and environmental impacts. Circular economy strategies also have the potential to create clean energy jobs and address environmental justice concerns.
The researchers noted that the emphasis on recycling may overlook the challenges and opportunities that research may reveal to other strategies. “If you can keep them longer than a working product, it’s better than completely deconstructing them down to the elements found during recycling,” says Garvin Heath, senior environmental scientist and energy analyst and Outstanding Research Staff member at NREL. “And when a product does reach the end of its life, recycling is not the only option.”
The deconstruction process takes more energy and generates more concomitant greenhouse gas emissions to then build into another product than to keep the first product in use longer, he said. Heath, along with his NREL colleague Dwarakanath Ravikumar, are lead authors of the 52nd Annual Critical Review of the Air & Waste Management Association, entitled “A Critical Review of Circular Economy for Lithium-Ion Battery and Photovoltaic Modules – Status, Challenges, and Opportunities “,” which appeared in the June issue of the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association.
Their co-authors, also from NREL, are Brianna Hansen and Elaine Kupets.
“People often describe the product life cycle as ‘take, make, waste’,” Heath said. “Recycling has received a lot of attention because it addresses the waste part, but there are ways to support a circular economy in participating and the making part as well.”
Recycling to recycle the materials used in the technologies is preferable to disposing of them in a landfill, he said, “but if we can think of designing a product to use less materials to dispose of to start, or less hazardous materials, should be the first strategy. ”
The authors also noted that there are still challenges with the development of PV and battery recycling methods. There are currently no integrated recycling processes that can recycle all the materials for both technologies, and existing research has focused more on laboratory scale methods.
NREL is already leading efforts to improve PV reliability, extend PV life, reduce the use of hazardous materials and reduce the demand for starting materials. These include the leadership of the Durable Module Materials Consortium (DuraMAT), which investigates ways to extend the useful life of PV modules, and the Bio-optimized technologies to keep thermoplastic products from landfills and the environment (BOTTLE) consortium , which develops ways to improve the recycling of plastics.
NREL is also a partner in the Argonne National Laboratory-led ReCell consortium, working with industry, academia and national laboratories to advance recycling technologies throughout the entire battery life cycle for current and future battery chemistry.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Advanced Manufacturing and Office of Solar Energy Technology funded the research.
NREL is the US Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for research and development of renewable energy and energy efficiency. NREL is operated for the Energy Department by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.
Article courtesy of the US Department of Energy (DOE)’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
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