CdTe solar panels can be hazardous due to cadmium. Gallium arsenide (GaAs) panels can be hazardous due to arsenic. Some older silicon solar panels can be hazardous waste for hexavalent chrome coatings. The amount of “chemicals” in solar panels is minuscule.
For example, a typical solar panel contains about half as much lead (used as solder) as a single shotgun cartridge, and a single battery used in a car or agricultural equipment contains more lead than 700 solar panels. An Ohio manufacturer uses a semiconductive layer of cadmium telluride in its solar panels that is only 3% as thick as a human hair. It is not surprising that Chinese factories, when faced with the exorbitant costs (both financial and environmental) of properly decomposing the chemicals in solar panels, prefer to release them into the environment rather than dispose of them safely for the environment. For more information on the regulatory activity of solar panels at the state level, visit the website of your state's environmental agency.
However, like any energy source, there is associated waste that must be recycled or properly discarded when the solar panels reach the end of their useful life. When a solar panel reaches the end of its useful life or is otherwise discarded, it becomes solid waste. This reflects the response of Cara Libby, senior technical leader for solar energy at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), who admits that no type of solar panel has a lucrative amount of recoverable parts. Heavy metals, such as lead and cadmium, can be leachable at concentrations such that waste panels would not pass the leaching procedure with toxic characteristics (TCLP), a test required by the RCRA to determine if the materials are hazardous waste.
Thin-film solar cells contain thin layers of semiconductive material, such as cadmium telluride (CdTe) or copper, indium and gallium diselenide (CIGS), on a support material such as glass, plastic or metal. Cadmium, indium, gallium (di) and selenide (CIGS) are another chemical in solar panels that is toxic to the lungs. In the manufacturing process, some chemicals are used to prepare silicon and manufacture wafers for monocrystalline and polycrystalline panels. The different arrows in the graphic below indicate the times when tax credits for investments in solar energy (ITC) were introduced, extended or extended.
By 2030, the United States is expected to have up to one million total tons of solar panel waste. When solar panels, which usually have a useful life of more than 25 years, reach the end of their useful life and become a waste stream, they must be managed safely. For example, cadmium telluride (CdTe), which does not present safety problems in solar installations, is not the same as the element cadmium (Cd), which can be toxic. It also suggests that the intense energy inputs used to produce these materials for the manufacture of solar panels are ignored.
For more information on these statistics and additional information on solar energy generation, visit the U. These solar panels usually contain small amounts of valuable metals embedded in the panel, such as silver and copper.
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