Green Manufacturing - Founding Project
In the project funded by the BMWi, experts of leading research institutes and industrial companies worked over a period of three years on the development and evaluation of ecologically and economically efficient PV production methods.
To this end, the eco-efficiency analysis and circular economy concepts were applied using the example of the production of c-Si and thin film PV modules and the entire value-added chains were examined. In addition to continuous yield maximisation, integrated factories offer the advantage of collecting not entirely avoidable waste, such as by-products, rejects, media, used consumables, etc., homogeneously under clearly defined conditions and, after quality control, to optimise their further treatment route. The standards for the life cycle analysis of PV products will be subjected to a large-scale test and datasets will be generated for future production and technology concepts, which can form the basis for future design of the regulatory framework of a sustainable PV product policy in the EU (ecodesign, ecolabelling). In the wastewater treatment and resource recovery from liquid media, comprehensive experimental investigations are to be carried out in the laboratory for value-adding recovery.
