Has anyone thought about scrapping solar panels?

Has anyone thought about scrapping solar panels?

There are many different manufacturing technologies in the production of solar panels. But the most common types of solar panels use silver to conduct the electricity on one side of the panel, and aluminum on the other side of the panel.

If anyone does scrap solar panels, don't ball mill the material as it makes it far more difficult to process. If it's kept in tact, the Al can be removed by a treatment of HCl, then the silver can be processed with HNO3. Or before you break anything down, talk with a refiner to find out how they want it processed. Having a good relationship with a refiner you can ask questions of could save you from making a mistake that will cause your scrap to be expensive to process, sometimes too expensive, then you are left in a situation where you cannot sell your scrap.

Scott

Is there anything on the pannels that you would be intrested in buying? If so how would you like it broke down?

It's the silver I'm personally after. I do a lot of gold and platinum group metal recovering and refining, but my main focus is silver. I am developing a precious metal silver clay and plan on taking my recycled silver all the way to retail product.

However you have at the very least, Aluminum and Silicon scrap as well as silver.

Scott

I'm bringing this back up as I'm listening to a radio show regarding solar panels becoming a serious power alternative go to. There is NOT enough silver to be able to accomplish this. Much like old Xray films the solar panels and wiring contain silver.
I am going to research this more but there has to be a buyer and market for recycling silver from solar panels. Anyone else have any new thoughts on this?

Ah its only been 5 years since I posted this... LOL Time for it to resurface. Anyone scraping solar panels????

I glued a bunch of panels together from solar yard lights
From a 2018 video, you can see it at 2:55
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdxxVWF5OoU