In light of growing photovoltaic (PV) installation capacities around the world, and with it the increasing number of decommissioned modules, it is vital that PV waste is duly treated to recover valuable materials as well as to comply with legislative requirements. The European Union (EU) directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment and the Restriction of Hazardous Substances mandates manufacturers, retailers, and importers to collectively organise and finance the end‐of‐life (EoL) stage of electronic products in the EU. Using life cycle assessment, this study makes a comparative analysis of the environmental impacts stemming from the EoL treatment of fluorine‐free and fluorinated backsheet material present in PV modules. The 2 potential EoL treatment scenarios explored in this study are incineration and pyrolysis. In general, the life cycle assessment of fluorine‐free backsheet material shows better environmental performance than fluorinated backsheet material for both EoL scenarios. For incineration scenario, the environmental impact of fluorine‐free backsheet is evidently better than fluorinated backsheet across 11 out of 12 investigated impact categories. Similarly for pyrolysis scenario, fluorine‐free backsheets have better environmental performance than fluorinated backsheets in 8 out of 12 impact categories. Furthermore, because of the release of high amounts of hydrogen fluoride, as well as the presence of halogenated hydrocarbons and halogenated aromatics in pyrolysis products, it can be concluded that pyrolysis is not an environmentally feasible pathway for fluorinated backsheet.

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光伏背板报废处理路径的比较生命周期评估

鉴于全球光伏（PV）装机容量的增长以及退役模块数量的增加，对光伏废料进行适当处理以回收有价值的材料并遵守法规要求至关重要。欧盟（EU）关于废弃电气电子设备和有害物质限制的指令要求制造商，零售商和进口商共同组织和资助欧盟电子产品的报废（EoL）阶段。使用生命周期评估，本研究对EoL处理PV模块中存在的无氟和氟化背板材料产生的环境影响进行了比较分析。本研究探讨的两种潜在的EoL处理方案是焚化和热解。一般来说，在两种EoL方案中，无氟背板材料的生命周期评估显示出比氟化背板材料更好的环境性能。对于焚烧场景，在研究的12种影响类别中，有11种无氟背板的环境影响明显好于氟化背板。同样，对于热解方案，在12种影响类别中的8种中，无氟背板的环境性能要比氟化背板好。此外，由于释放出大量的氟化氢，并且在热解产物中存在卤代烃和卤代芳族化合物，因此可以得出结论，热解对于氟化底片而言不是环境上可行的途径。