{"id":169681,"date":"2025-10-31T07:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T06:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=169681"},"modified":"2025-10-27T12:52:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T11:52:14","slug":"transforming-waste-solar-panels-into-hydrogen-and-secondary-battery-materials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/transforming-waste-solar-panels-into-hydrogen-and-secondary-battery-materials\/","title":{"rendered":"Transforming Waste Solar Panels into Hydrogen and Secondary Battery Materials"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\u00a9 UNIST<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

“Ammonia (NH3) has emerged as a promising hydrogen (H2) carrier thanks to its high hydrogen content (17.6 wt%) and easy liquification. However, conventional NH3\u00a0cracking requires high temperatures (400\u2013600\u00b0C) and additional gas separation processes, increasing the regeneration cost of high-purity H2. Here, we develop a\u00a0mechanochemical NH3\u2013silicon (Si) reaction that enables high-purity H2 production under mild conditions (50.0\u00b0C) without further separation. Utilizing dynamic\u00a0mechanical actions, the mechanochemical NH3\u2013Si (MAS) reaction realized 100.0% NH3 conversion, 100.0% H2 purity, and a fast H2 production rate of 102.5 mmol h\u20131. The process simultaneously produced high-value silicon nitride (Si3N4) from end-of-life Si solar panels, demonstrating the strong economic competitiveness of the\u00a0MAS reaction. Combining experimental and theoretical analyses, the dynamic evolution of Si nanoparticles was determined to be the key to efficiently extracting H2 from\u00a0NH3 during ball milling.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>A research team, unveiled a noble technology, capable of extracting hydrogen (H\u2082)\u00a0stored in ammonia (NH\u2083) by adding silicon (Si), simultaneously producing high-purity H2 and silicon nitride (Si\u2083N\u2084). This innovative process not only reduces hydrogen production costs, but also enables the recycling of silicon from waste solar panels, attracting significant attention as a sustainable solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Led by Professor Jong-Beom Baek in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST, the research team announced the development of a ball milling process that can produce 100% pure H\u2082 directly directly from NH\u2083 at low temperatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NH3 is regarded as a promising clean fuel carrier because of its high H\u2082 content (17.6 wt%) and well-established infrastructure for storage and transport. However, conventional methods to release H\u2082 from ammonia require high temperatures (400\u2013600\u00b0C) and additional purification steps, leading to increased energy consumption and costs.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Schematic
Figure 1. Schematic representation of the mechanochemical NH3\u2013Si (MAS) reaction. \u00a9 UNIST<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The newly developed process operates at a remarkably low temperature of around 50\u00b0C, significantly reducing energy requirements. It involves placing ammonia gas and finely powdered silicon into a sealed container known as a ball mill – containing small ceramic or steel beads – and vigorously shaking it. The mechanical impact and friction activate the silicon, rapidly decomposing ammonia to release H\u2082. During this process, nitrogen (N\u2082) is also produced but reacts with silicon to form Si\u2083N\u2084, which remains in the system rather than escaping as a gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experimental results demonstrated complete ammonia decomposition, generating\u00a0H\u2082 at a rate of 102.5 mmol per hour, with purity confirmed at 100% – free from nitrogen or other impurities. Notably, when using silicon recovered from end-of-life solar panels, the process achieved the same high conversion efficiency and\u00a0H\u2082 purity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Si\u2083N\u2084, a high-value material produced as a byproduct, has promising applications in secondary batteries. Lithium-ion batteries incorporating the synthesized silicon nitride achieved a capacity of 391.5 mAh\/g, maintaining over 80% of their initial capacity after 1,000 charge-discharge cycles with a Coulombic efficiency of 99.9%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economic analyses indicate that, when accounting for revenue from selling Si\u2083N\u2084 derived from waste solar panels, the cost of H\u2082 production could be negative\u2014around -7.14 USD per kilogram\u2014making the process potentially profitable and environmentally beneficial.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Concept
Figure 2. Concept diagram of a process for separating H2 from NH3. \u00a9 UNIST<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
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Professor Baek<\/strong> stated, \u201cThis development offers a solution to the longstanding challenge of\u00a0H\u2082 separation and purification in ammonia-based H\u2082 economy.\u201d He<\/strong> further added, \u201cUsing Si recovered from waste solar panels, the process performs comparably to using commercial silicon powder, demonstrating its viability as a sustainable recycling technology. It could play a significant role in managing the over 80 million tons of photovoltaic waste projected by 2050.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This research was published in the September 2025 edition of the\u00a0Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS)<\/em><\/a>. The project was supported by funding from the Korea Research Foundation, the Ministry of Science and ICT, and the Korea Institute for Industrial Technology Evaluation and Planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Journal Reference<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Seung-Hyeon Kim, Runnan Guan, Jiwon Gu, et al., \u201cSeparation-Free High-Purity Hydrogen Production via the Mechanochemical Ammonia\u2013Silicon Reaction under Mild Conditions<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0JACS<\/em>, (2025).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Ammonia (NH3) has emerged as a promising hydrogen (H2) carrier thanks to its high hydrogen content (17.6 wt%) and easy liquification. However, conventional NH3\u00a0cracking requires high temperatures (400\u2013600\u00b0C) and additional gas separation processes, increasing the regeneration cost of high-purity H2. Here, we develop a\u00a0mechanochemical NH3\u2013silicon (Si) reaction that enables high-purity H2 production under mild conditions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":169699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"The UNIST-researchers findings have been published in the September 2025 edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS)","footnotes":""},"categories":[17143],"tags":[14796,10416,16733,10630,10453,24005,15515],"supplier":[13125],"class_list":["post-169681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recycling","tag-batteries","tag-circulareconomy","tag-energystorage","tag-hydrogen","tag-recycling","tag-solarpanels","tag-upcycling","supplier-unist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169681"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=169681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}