Patent Application
20240375117
This application claims the benefit of TW 112117765, filed May 12, 2023, which is incorporated in its entirety by reference herein.
The present invention relates to a recycling system, particularly relates to a solar panel recycling system and the recycling method thereof.
Solar energy technology is currently the most popular green energy technology. Solar panels are generally used to absorb solar radiation and convert it into electrical energy. The average lifespan of current solar panels is approximately 20 years, and the power generation efficiency of a solar panel over 20 years may be difficult to meet the demand. The raw materials for manufacturing solar panels contain a large amount of metal resources such as copper, aluminum, and silver. Therefore, proper disposal of discarded solar panels has become a main objective for manufacturers.
The concept of “Urban Mine” was advocated in the 1980s by Professor Hideo Nanjyo of the Research Institute of Mineral Dressing and Metallurgy at Tohoku University. It promotes the idea of viewing discarded waste electronic products in modern society as “mines” and excavating these massive “mines”. Various recycling methods are used to recover precious metals from these “mines”. Compared with precious metals extracted, smelted, and processed from the natural environment, precious metals obtained from the “Urban Mine” have less environmental impact and greater economic value.
Most current solar panel recycling methods use heat to reduce the adhesion between a surface glass of a solar panel and a solar cell module, and then remove the surface glass. Using these methods to recycle solar panels consumes a large amount of thermal energy and easily causes environmental pollution; therefore, it is an extremely important issue today to recycle solar panels using low energy consumption methods.
In view of energy consumption of current solar panel recycling technology, the main object of the present invention is to regulate a conveying speed of a conveyor belt of a crushing machine by measuring a thickness of a glass of a solar panel. When the thickness of the glass of the solar panel is greater than a default value, a control unit reduces the conveying speed of the conveyor belt on which the solar panel is placed; that is, the time of the solar panel staying on the conveyor belt is increased, and the time for crushing the glass of the solar panel in a crushing unit is also increased. When the thickness of the glass of the solar panel is less than the default value, the control unit increases the conveying speed of the conveyor belt on which the solar panel is placed; that is, the time of the solar panel staying on the conveyor belt is reduced, and the time for crushing the glass of the solar panel in the crushing unit is also reduced. Accordingly, the conveyor speed of the conveyor belt on which the solar panel is placed is dynamically regulated according to the thickness of the glass of the solar panel, and the processing time of the crushing machine for the glass of the solar panel can be improved.
Another object of the present invention is to use a separating unit to separate the crushed glass of the solar panel from the crushing unit and the solar cell module, so the crushed glass can be further used in various recycling procedures, such as re-manufacturing of glass, soundproof bricks, refractory bricks, and asphalt replacement materials, etc. The separated solar cell modules can be extracted and refined for precious metals. That is, they are transformed to urban minerals indirectly.
According to the above object, the present invention discloses a solar panel recycling system includes: a frame dismantling machine for removing an outer frame of a solar panel; and a crushing machine, wherein the solar panel without the outer frame is placed on a conveyor belt of the crushing machine that includes at least a sensing unit for measuring a thickness of a glass of the solar panel, and a control unit for simultaneously regulating a conveying speed of the conveyor belt according to the thickness of the glass and controlling a crushing unit in which the glass of the solar panel is crushed.
According to the above object, the present invention also discloses a solar panel recycling method comprising: conducting a frame dismantling step for removing an outer frame of a solar panel; placing the solar panel without the outer frame on a conveyor belt of a crushing machine; measuring a thickness of a glass of the solar panel on the conveyor belt; regulating a conveying speed of the conveyor belt according to the thickness of the glass, in which the conveying speed of the conveyor belt is reduced when the thickness of the glass is greater than a default value, and the conveying speed of the conveyor belt is reduced when the thickness of the glass is less than the default value; and conducting a crushing step for simultaneously regulating the conveying speed of the conveyor belt according to the thickness of the glass and crushing the glass of the solar panel for separating the glass from the solar panel.
Detailed descriptions of embodiments of the present invention are given below; however, the scope of the present invention is not limited by the embodiments described herein. The figures herein are all schematic representations and are mainly used to show the connection between units. The embodiments are described in detail below with reference to the accompany figures.
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Next, the solar panel without the outer frame is placed on the conveyor belt 1210 of the crushing machine 120. Then the sensing unit 1220 of the crushing machine 120 measures a thickness of the glass of the solar panel, the control unit 1230 regulates a conveying speed of the conveyor belt 1210 according to the thickness and controls the crushing procedures to crush the glass of the solar panel to facilitate the producing of the crushed glass and solar cell module.
It should be noted that when the thickness of the glass of the solar panel measured by the sensing unit 1220 is greater than a default value, it means the glass of the solar panel is thicker and requires a longer crushing time. Accordingly, the control unit 1230 decreases the conveying speed of the conveyor belt 1210 on which the solar panel is placed and increases the staying time of the solar panel on the conveyor belt 1210. Due to the reduced conveying speed of the conveyor 1210 and the longer crushing time in crushing unit 1240, the glass of the solar panel can be completely crushed in this time range. On the other side, when the thickness of the glass of the solar panel measured by the sensing unit 1220 is less than the default value, it means the glass is thinner and requires shorter crushing time. Accordingly, the control unit 1230 increases the conveying speed of the conveyor belt 1210 on which the solar panel is placed and reduces the staying time of the solar panel on the conveyor belt 1210. Due to the increased conveying speed of conveyor 1210 and the shorter crushing time in crushing unit 1240, the glass of solar panel can still be completely crushed in this time range. In this embodiment of the present invention, the sensing unit 1220 can be contact type sensing unit or non-contact type sensing unit, and the default value of the thickness of the glass of the solar panel is 6 mm.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the control unit 1230 comprises a frequency conversion controller for controlling the conveying speed of the conveyor belt 1210 by changing the output frequency. The output frequency setting range is 0-60 Hz. When the thickness of the glass measured by the sensing unit 1220 is less than 6 mm, such as 3 mm-6 mm, the control unit 1230 adjusts the frequency of the conveyor belt 1210 to 45 Hz-55 Hz according to the thickness range, thereby increasing the conveying speed of conveyor belt 1210. In another embodiment, when the thickness of the glass of the solar panel on the conveyor belt 1210 measured by the sensing unit 1220 is greater than 6 mm, such as 7 mm-15 mm, the control unit 1230 adjusts the frequency of the conveyor belt 1210 to 20 Hz-40 Hz, thereby reducing the conveying speed of the conveyor belt 1210.
Since the specifications of the solar panels vary from brand to brand, regulating the conveying speed of the conveyor belt 1210 according to the thickness of the glass of the solar panel can be used to solve the problem of existing technology in which no matter the thickness of the solar panel glass is larger or less than the default value, the conveying speed of the conveyor belt of the crushing machine is the same, and it may result in the incomplete crushing of the glass, and one or more crushing procedures may be needed. Therefore, regulating the conveying speed of the conveyor 1210 can reduces the operation time and cost. Another advantage is that by controlling the conveying speed of the conveyor belt 1210, the solar panel can be completely broken and the adhesion between the glass and the solar cell module can be destroyed. Compare to conventional methods using heat to separate the glass of solar panel and the solar battery module, the present invention can effectively reduce energy consumption as well as pollution, and it can effectually separate the glass of solar panel from the solar cell module to facilitate subsequent recycling applications.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the crushing unit 1240 is made up of a plurality of unbreakable balls, that is steel balls, stainless steel balls, or zirconium balls, and these balls are used to hit and crush the glass of the solar panel. After the thickness of the glass is measured by the sensing unit 1220, the control unit 1230 controls the crushing procedures by adjusting the number of balls, the falling speed, or the frequency of ball hits.
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It should be noted that the separating unit 130 is used to separate the broken glass and crushing unit 1240 from the solar battery module of the solar panel. The procedures include transporting the glass of the solar panel crushed by the crushing machine 120 via conveyor belt 1210 to the separating unit 130, separating the crushed glass and the crushing unit 1240 from the solar battery module of the solar panel (no shown in the figure) by gravity, collecting the crushed glass and the crushing unit 1240 fallen into the recycling unit (now shown in the figure), the solar battery module of the solar panel is broken, cut, or chopped into 3-5 cm by breaking unit 140, and then the broken, cut, chopped solar battery module of the solar panel is packed by packing unit 150 for further recycling treatments.
The foregoing descriptions are only preferred embodiments of the present invention and are not used to limit the scope of the present invention. Meanwhile, any person with ordinary knowledge in the art can easily understand and implement it. Therefore, any equivalent variation or modification without departing from the spirit of the present invention disclosed herein is to be included within the scope of the present invention.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 112117765 | May 2023 | TW | national |
