The process, which has been patented, has been specially created for photovoltaic panels in order to quickly and efficiently sort the component materials, as a key step of highly efficient PV recycling.

Recycling solar panels thoroughly has proven difficult up to now since the individual parts, such as glass, silicon, metals, wiring and plastic, are integrated in such a way that makes them hard to separate.

To be reused, solar panel components need to be carefully separated to avoid contamination with other materials. Manufacturers will only reuse materials that have a high purity—which has proven very hard to achieve.

That means the vast majority of solar panels could end up in landfill, rather than being recycled to the benefit of the environment.

But now a team from the ProMO lab led by Professor Yansong Shen has announced a new process which offers an effective separation of 99% of PV cell particles.

"PV panels usually last for around 20 or 25 years, so given the growth in domestic solar power since the 1990s we can see there is a very pressing and urgent problem to deal with those first generation of panels that are coming to their end-of-life," Prof. Shen says.

"We want to reuse and recycle those panels, but at the moment there is very limited research and very limited technology to allow us to do so effectively and prevent them from just ending up in landfill.