Incineration of organic solar cells: Efficient end of life management by quantitative silver recovery

Roar R. Søndergaard, Yannick Serge Zimmermann, Nieves Espinosa Martinez, Markus Lenz, Frederik C Krebs

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

355 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Recovery of silver from the electrodes of roll-to-roll processed organic solar cells after incineration has been performed quantitatively by extraction with nitric acid. This procedure is more than 10 times faster than previous reports and the amount of acid needed for the extraction is reduced by a factor of 100-150. LCA studies show that the resulting environmental impacts from silver extraction of incinerated ashes are more favourable on almost all standard factors compared to extraction from shredded organic solar cells. The so lessened environmental impacts by efficient recovery fully justify the use of Ag as an electrode in scaled production of organic solar cells.
Original languageEnglish
JournalEnergy & Environmental Science
Volume9
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)857-861
Number of pages5
ISSN1754-5692
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016

Bibliographical note

This article is Open Access and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Incineration of organic solar cells: Efficient end of life management by quantitative silver recovery'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this