the safest level you can follow us, i d, w dot com or on social media. just look for d w. use. thanks for watching caesar the last contact about why does that? because now i'm leave them under the new host to join us for an exciting explanation of everything in between. this is a video and audio production 5 d w. i. who did you with unit the we might have a team, tiny problem with sola. and this was

a zone for these energy is not what stopped delivering clean energy in the 19 fifties and took off in the late 2000 is all ready for the dumpster. we don't because the technology is trash. but because solar panels are built the last 22, so soon we could be looking at 27000000 tons of out of state solar waste. and only a tiny fraction gets recycled around 80 percent of old panels. landfills big from one plastics end up in the environments to precious metals wouldn't just go to waste and 3 recycling save emissions. so i'm hand the front jobs to find a fix. and this has to do with baking and bathing. now we have the french company, rosie found it in 2017. they are one of the pioneers. and so the recycling this is

antoine. hello. he has been working here for the past 4 years. so what are the main pro steps in your recycling process? so the 1st step is to get suite of the cleaners. so we do it with a demo treatments. it's up to release processing so nice that any municipality moves, and then we separate them until we make any consultation. and then you have the last step because that sort of was a sense of something different metals and these methods we want to separate them from you chosen. so we have the chemical treatments, small night chemical treatment that we do that this i choose the city calling from the see the and this way at the end with the sales inside the independence. basically, a solar panel is made of a few main ingredients that need to be separated during the restocking process. you've got tempered glass double plastic, blue, the cells with silicon silver and copper, a plastic backseat and an aluminum frame that holds everything together. of course,

the precise mix of components varies by manufacturer. why is it so hard to recycle these panels? so the good thing we fill up and then said them made to last very long 20, so to use outside. and he was a condition they can last because of the cost function, this cost function with this phone. let's see, thing the problem was pulling, they're screwing everything together. it's very, what's are resistance. the problem is now we need to recycle them and we need to separate all these materials to put them back in the economy. and the old book is always putting there. so the most settings, the 1st step is to separate the materials from the putting those. this is not a possibility to crush sheets because if you crush you to create small plastic goods, all glued together with these pulling or less and the plastic is literally everywhere . so even when you now remove this and you still can't access the

cells, right, exactly. you have different types of floating, there's even more years. there's even more. oh wow, this is difficult. so. yeah. so the 1st step is to get rid of the plastics. the panel it's get put into this big grey furnace. and because rosie is still in the pets and think process, everything today is pretty much top secret. the mazda mind behind this process is, you see she new c t o and co founder of rosie. the panel of bake for between one and a half and 6 hours, turning the plastics inside into gas. what is really important when you look at this process because it depends on the temperature, how the panels of the 2nd one makes the difference. what's next to the funds and what these our, our noise and protection i, people section these, of course,

is not. this turned off. i would, i suppose, as it's customized at all, to my fault, to treat most of these hold off on their own meeting. but we, uh, once we, uh we, we managed to do this to improve the general regulation of the oven, depending on the, on the, on the so smart that you'll watch. so the, the most used to contribute to the process. it's not, i know, but we paid old. it's a combination of the 2. it's covered. meaning we use the energy from the load your to picks up the oven so we can save energy please. the combination of the competing between the machines a quick month deals on the field. so the combination of the to make some small mexico efficient. rosie sands has it as gases and exhausts hughes through a 5 stage filtering system. they say only c o 2 and water vapor are released in the end. but despite the c o 2, recycling still saves emissions compared to mining fresh silicon. creating the base

silicon, some quotes cold and which ships release us between 8 to 12 tons of c o 2 pets. one of silicon, rosie says, very cycling process only reduces 3 tones, a reduction of at least 5 tons of c o. 2 per ton of silicon, the company wouldn't let us show you the solar panels going into the furnace. but this is what the solar panels looked like off the beam, baked in the oven. this batch is about 20 kilos and represents the contents of one solar panels. you can see the glass. you can see the silicon waivers which are like super thin. yeah. and you can just move. yeah. and then you've got the now this mass goes into the next range of machines that take on the salting job. when you look at a typical solar panel from the weight perspective, it's about 76 percent last 10 percent plus the 8 percent aluminum,

5 percent silicon, one percent copper and 0 point one percent suv are. and it's that really valuable silva, that's the main goal of this whole process. the 1st, we need to extract the copper and glass. but this whole process is the only way to recycle solar panels. other companies are trying it with, with chemical recycling, for example, is less energy intensive. it costs less and you don't need to be able to come in afterwards. however, the recovery rates can be low thumbs like solar materials and gemini, i using hate like rosie at the start of that process. but no kemi co boss and japan does either one wholesale parts of the place and likes the name suggests a really health and softness is used to separate the gloves from the rest. another german company is putting it very, very simply hitting the solar panels with lightning. this bus them into several

components which are then salt to boat. i don't think i can pick a key a favorite right now. models in pits us has been researching photo of a, takes the load in 20 years and this concerns about how to deal with all the plastics in solar panels. i'm not exactly happy, for example, with a stomach process in which the polymers are considered. right. that's why, because we would use those polymers to go into a space for which the, the elements are still there. now that being said, it is very hard currency to take upon them, or that's inside the solar panel. get it out of the solar panel and, and tweak it in the way that we can reuse it as a polymer. it's very energy intensive to do that. and it doesn't really compete both energetically or economically or ecologically with making a new column. so plastics are going to stay a pain to deal with. but what about the remaining materials off to the mechanical so taishan. now most of them is here is us separated,

but we still need to get out the most valuable one that is still in this village of a taluk sales connected to the senate can it's the silver, the thousands of pieces of 1st of all take sales in these containers go through a set of 5 to 8 kemi co with boss that are connected to each other. here the silicon episode of us separated from one another. it is these tiny, tiny silver lines that we are talking about here. then jump into solar panel is to make the electricity available for an entire year's oil storage in a battery. for example. in case you wondering, this is as much of the process as we could show you the can you specify a bit what kind of a chemical to use? because chemistry is like a really wide so we avoid the use of organic solvents and strand assets. and we have specific condition with different best to treat to different to will take. so

that's as specific as they would get because we can't really show you the inside of the process. we set up a small experiment. so you 1st have to fold about takes out as they enter and every step you can see the silver thing is detached, fill it to more. it's like really tiny small fingers. yes, it is very, very soon. and elizabeth like hair. yeah. once the purity on the silver and on the silicon that comes out of this. so our process is in general, unable to keep this impurity for the material when they come in. so we do degrade the pure richie, and so for example, for the silver, it comes from silver paste on the on the cells and silver paste or in general above 90 percent. sure. which for the city. cool. it's a 99.99 percent. oh okay. that sounds quiet,

your the recovered purity is in line with scientifically published papers, but for the economics of the process, and now the number is important. how much off the materials is actually covered? with that combination of thermal and chemical recycling steps, rosie says the able to recover 99 percent of the glass aluminum and copper 90 percent of the silicon and 95 percent of the server. which means that they get about 10 us dollars worth of silver out of each solar panel. the other stuff, glass aluminum, copper and silicon is worth another 10 bucks. but of course, the recovered materials cost more than version materials. do you have the feeling that companies are willing to pay these premiums that you have for recycled material? yeah, unfortunately, the don't say big premium. but today, all the big companies, all the induced companies in europe has very strong targets on c o. 2 reduction and

using recycling that they owe these a very good way for them to reduce their c o 2 emission from their real materials. so already we city coding, for instance, the to to emissions of city can function is $35.00. so far, the custom there is crucial that they use let's see what we intend to use. my tails and our city can cool 5014 these targets. i would have loved to compare the price is full recumbent materials to actual market prices, but rosie wouldn't telling me the numbers. luckily for them and fonts that is a so called gauge feed that every sold and puts a also a must pay to recycling companies to make sure the pedals arrived fully taken care of at their end of life. just to put this in perspective, a study by the us national renewable energy lab put the cost of trashing edge solar panel at under $5.00. whereas recycling one would cost $15.00 to $45.00 to as. so how do you make recycling pay the rosy?

say they can process around $3000.00 tons of solar panels per year. yeah. not really that much compared to the millions of tons of trash expected in the upcoming years. and it's not even enough for them to break even. but they're already planning to build a facility 10 times bigger in germany by the end of 2025, which should be able to handle $30000.00 tons per year. however, up scaling, such a process is a real challenge as the so you told me put a very big scale recycling sites will have to organize it very well. the operate test engineers technician is to or the chase ability system. and also how to integrate the arthritis. so human beings with the automation to reduce the cost, to protect, to a maximum, the safety of the, of the sites also. and you cannot use this recycled silicon straight way to form

a new p, the module. one of the reasons being the technology moved on 2030 years ago, silicon of 99.999 percent purity was use. sounds pretty pure. however, today silicon more than a 1000 times pura is required. so you need another purification process off to this, to create new silicon ingots and new wafers to put into new modules. this has been done on the science sides, for example, by germany's townhill for institute research buddy that works closely with industry partners. but rosie is taking a different route and it's selling it's we covered material to the ultimate of building and electronics industries. if it is or the video like it's going on at saras and don't forget so, so starts our title. we've posted the videos on the environment every friday.

the th, the god c o i is the cause of god, but would even be housed and it was a full time on kind of professionals that they said, well, that germany is seeing a shift to the right people here are protesting against the far right because they were afraid that history could repeat itself is the worst part of german history, the nazi era.