Replacing Silver In Solar Panels

It depends but a used thick film solar panel could contain as many as 13 troy ounces of silver.

Replacing silver in solar panels. For the latter silver solar cell panels are more efficient at retrieving power. Silver is used for collecting and conducting electrons generated to make useful current the two obvious choices for replacing silver are aluminium and copper. This spurt was mainly due to the record growth of the pv industry which pushed demand for silver as a component of silver pastes for solar cells from 79 3 million ounces in 2016 to 94 1 million. Can the replacement of silver in solar cells make them cheaper.

Silver is the best conductor known to mankind. That does not replace the facts though. The use of silver in the production of the solar cells results in high cost of production. Attempts have been made to thrift some silver out of silver dependent solar panels and replace some silver with copper.

Problem is the quality and durability of the cheaper copper thrift solar cells effectively means that silver s use in solar panels will endure. Aluminium can be rejected outright due to very poor conductivity for front contacts ob. As a result solar panel manufacturers are looking for new sources to replace silver.