Quote:
Originally Posted by red-beard
...except for the toxic heavy metals in the doped silicon. They should not go in a landfill. The aluminum frame will be recycled. The glass? Not as likely.
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Dopants are very low in concentration, low enough to be absorbed into whatever crystal lattice is already there, so there's no separate phase with a new set of chemistry problems to deal with w.r.t. environmental fate. They're also pretty nontoxic in their pure state.
The photovoltaic layers themselves vary in their durability/fate once munched up and put in the ground. Some sound scary (GaAs) but that stuff is about as stable as sand.
If they don't use Pb in the soldering, I bet the end of the life cycle is waaay kinder than their birth. I've done CVD for thin film solar cells - I bet a baby dolphin dies every time you crack open a tank of arsine, phosphene or silane!