Today, the use of lead is severely restricted, and banned for certain applications where it can not practically be prevented from leaking into the environment, in jurisdictions including the United States, European Union and Japan. In spite of this, a typical 60-cell crystalline silicon solar module produced today contains up to 12 grams of lead.
Given the relatively small amounts of lead used by the PV industry, and the fact that the lead is enclosed entirely within the module materials, it is unlikely that PV products by themselves would be the cause of major lead pollution, even in a worst-case scenario with a large percentage of panels ending up in landfill.
This lead is primarily found within the ribbon coating and soldering paste used to connect cells together. “Right now, most PV manufacturers use a ribbon that contains lead,” says Dong Hu of Chinese module manufacturer Longi Solar’s technical service department.
Lead is found in various minerals within the earth’s crust, and has a wide range of industrial uses, though the bulk of demand for the material comes from the automobile industry where it used in lead-acid car batteries. The toxicity of lead to humans and animals has long been known.
“Increasing the temperature is a possibility – this allows you to use a lead-free soldering process. But the risk is there that you increase the stress on the cell, and you have more microcracking and a higher breakage rate during production,” he says. In the European Union, the use of lead in all industries has been restricted since 2002.
This review focuses on the development of lead-free non-toxic perovskite materials based solar cells and other devices. To solve the lead associated toxicity problem, lead can be substituted with nontoxic and environmentally friendly metals like Ti, Sn, Sb, Ge, Bi, and Ag.
The weekend read: Taking the lead – pv magazine International
Now-defunct manufacturer SolarWorld had developed a lead-free process for cell and module production years ago. Holger Neuhaus, then managing director of the group''s research subsidiary, now ...
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The importance of lead in the economics of solar
Lead is part of the alloy used to coat the PV ribbons used inside solar panels. The lead imparts durability to the solar cells inside the panel, by lowering the melting point of the metallic …
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The weekend read: Taking the lead – pv magazine International
Now-defunct manufacturer SolarWorld had developed a lead-free process for cell and module production years ago. Holger Neuhaus, then managing director of the group''s …
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The weekend read: A lead-free future for solar PV
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