Silver Recovery from Amorphous/Crystalline Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cell by Alkaline Chemical Immersion and Pyrolysis

As a typical kind of high‐efficiency crystalline silicon (c‐Si) solar cell, amorphous/crystalline heterojunction (SHJ) cell is stepping into mass production currently. It great significance to recover Ag from unqualified, broken, and end‐of‐life (EoL) SHJ cells. Herein, facile method including alkaline chemical immersion pyrolysis developed. By immersing the sodium hydroxide (NaOH) aqueous solution for period time, electrodes can be peeled off effectively. The increase concentration ( C s ) temperature T NaOH shortens peeling‐off time t p electrodes. deduced that heated environment accelerate ester hydrolysis cured resin at contact interface between electrode transparent conductive oxide (TCO) layer, which weakens bonding strength electrode. After cleaning, drying, milling, peeled‐off are pyrolyzed in air 500 °C 60 min remove completely. result, powder obtained with high purity over 99% almost without loss since it not involved any reaction during whole recovery process.