Tokuyama Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "Tokuyama" or "the Company") is currently working with the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) on the development of a low-temperature thermal decomposition recycling technology for photovoltaic panels. Recently, the Company applied this technology to remove the cover glass from photovoltaic panels (hereinafter, "cover glass"), which it then supplied for a demonstration test run by AGC Inc. to produce float glass from recycled materials. This test by AGC was conducted using the float glass production furnace at their Kashima Plant on March 18. Using cover glass supplied by the Company as raw material, AGC successfully recycled this glass into float glass for the first time in Japan.

Image of recycling waste photovoltaic panels

The service life of photovoltaic panels is estimated at 20-30 years, several hundred thousand tons of photovoltaic panels are scheduled to be discarded annually starting in the late 2030s. And since cover glass accounts for approximately 60% of the total weight of photovoltaic panels, there are concerns of serious environmental impacts resulting from the disposal of this glass as industrial waste in landfills.

The Company therefore constructed a photovoltaic module recycling demonstration test facility in November 2019 (Nanporo-cho, Sorachi-gun, Hokkaido), where it established the technology for processing and extracting components that make up discarded photovoltaic panels in a high-quality manner. Currently, the Company is looking into the potential for applying material recycling to discarded cover glass and other components, and is engaged in efforts to build a business model for commercializing this concept. With the success of this test, it is expected that float glass, which has a high production volume, will serve as a suitable outlet for the horizontal recycling of cover glass.

The Tokuyama Group is focusing its energies on the Eco Business under the goal of transforming its business portfolio as raised in Medium-Term Management Plan 2025, and will continue to make every effort in order to play a part in realizing a circular economy for photovoltaic panels.