Dr Sophie Pain - University of Warwick

Research Fellowships 2024

Solar energy is playing a key role in meeting growing global energy demands without compromising net zero targets, while adding more than £25bn to the UK economy. Photovoltaic installations in the UK have grown nearly exponentially over the last decade. Although modules last for over 25 years, there is a major forthcoming issue as installed modules come offline and need to be recycled in huge volumes (more than 200,000 modules coming offline annually by 2026). In principle, many of the materials in a solar module (glass, metals, silicon) can be recycled, but the polymeric adhesives and encapsulants used in the modules make it difficult to extract the more valuable materials. Dr Sophie Pain’s Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship at the University of Warwick aims to enhance the recyclability of silicon photovoltaic modules by identifying new alternative encapsulants. These will be developed to be more easily removable than conventional polymers and subsequently will provide a solution for tacking this growing waste stream.

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