Along with the globally increasing energy demand the application of renewable energy sources is
urgently required. According to national regulations and international treaties (e.g. Kyoto Protocol)
these sources shall be sustainably available at reasonable financial effort and non-polluting during
production, use and waste treatment. Using photovoltaic sources (PV), these requirements can
clearly be met. All industry has to follow the best available technology and an integrative life cycle
approach for their products and production. PV thin film technology strictly responds to this obligation.
In order to save material resources and to minimise undesirable landfill recycling of spent PV
modules is necessary. Recycling of multi-component materials containing mixed metals typically
consists of three parts: liberation, separation, and recovery. In our study (RESOLVED an EU
Demonstration Project) the focus is on liberation and separation. The converting layer (CdTe) was
liberated (removed) from the glass carrier by sandblasting and separated subsequently from the
blast material (e.g. corundum) and other components using stepwise different separation techniques.
Both the glass substrate and CdTe are subject to re-use. The overall feasibility of the recycling
process is primarily governed by the efficiency of the procedure applied to the separation of CdTe
from the rest (blasting material, glass residues, etc.). This was performed by water-based flotation.
Several flotation procedures were studied regarding their separation yields. The distribution of
CdTe in the phases involved (flotate, water, residue) was measured using energy dispersive X-ray
fluorescence spectrometry (EDXRS) intended for future routine application and by instrumental
large-volume photon activation analysis (IPAA) as a reference procedure. The results of both analytical
methods were in satisfactory agreement.
Incineration of sewage sludge is expected to increase in the future due to growing concerns about the direct use of sludge in agriculture. Sewage sludge is the pollutant sink of wastewater treatment and thus loaded with contaminants that might pose environmental hazards. Incineration degrades organic pollutants efficiently, but since the ash is currently mostly disposed of, all valuable component like phosphorus (P) and technologically relevant metals present in the sewage sludge ash (SSA) are removed from the economic cycle entirely. We conducted a complete survey of SSA from German mono-incineration facilities and determined the theoretical recovery potential of 57 elements. German SSA contains up to 19,000 t/a P which equals approximately 13% of phosphorus applied in the German agriculture in form of phosphate rock based mineral fertilizers. Thus, SSA is an important secondary resource of P. However, its P-solubility in ammonium citrate solution, an indicator for the bioavailability, is only about 26%. Treatment of SSA is recommended to enhance P bioavailability and remove heavy metals before it is applied as fertilizer. The recovery potential for technologically relevant metals is generally low, but some of these elements might be recovered efficiently in the course of P recovery exploiting synergies.