Since July 2025, EVERPV project partner CEA’s sanding technology has become fully operational at Envie 2e Aquitaine’s facility in Saint-Loubès, France.
The EVERPV project aims to improve two recycling techniques for the end-of-life solar PV panels. These techniques are focused on delamination, i.e. separating the different layers of the solar PV panel to recover materials.
As part of the project, CEA is improving its sanding technique for glass-backsheet silicon cell modules, which consists of removing the different layers via abrasion. The innovative breakthrough sanding-based recycling technology uses high-speed abrasive belts to selectively remove each layer of a solar PV panel, enabling the recovery of most materials in the form of high-quality powders like glass, silver, and polymers.
This technology is a significant milestone for the EVERPV project, enabling real-environment testing, validation of the performance, reliability and scalability of the technology. It also reflects the progress made by the project towards developing an efficient, low-cost and high-purity PV recycling technology.
This is the first time a sanding process has been used for solar PV recycling. The process also helps recover nearly all of the valuable materials in end‑of‑life solar PV panels, including the aluminium frame, copper cables, junction box, glass, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, fluorinated compounds, encapsulant, silver, and silicon. The backsheet and cell powders can also be processed to extract PET, EVA and fluorinated materials, while silver and silicon can be cleanly separated for conventional purification. The result is a clean, reusable glass plate. This is important because a delamination process that keeps materials pure and avoids cross‑contamination is essential for turning old solar PV panels into a reliable source of high‑quality secondary raw materials.
The innovation is most suitable for glass/backsheet solar PV panels, which make up most end‑of‑life solar PV panels.
You can read more about the sanding process in a factsheet produced by CEA here, and an article published in Wiley’s Advanced Energy & Sustainability Research Journal, on ‘Mechanical Glass-Backsheet Photovoltaic Modules Delamination: Toward Materials Recycling,’ here.
