The whole journey to find most efficient and the cleanest way to recycle the renewable energy began with a curious research professor tried something for fun.
In 2017, during his continuous research on asphalt, he came across an article where Japanese researchers were recycling and reclaiming minerals from used solar panels. To take some brain off his research, he gave a try to separate minerals from the solar panels using the same method he was researching for the asphalt.
Everything worked better than expected. However, cost efficiency to implemented in real life was another problem.
Initial tests proved that it was actually possible to reclaim minerals from the solar cells. As well, there was an alternative, cost efficient way to reclaim the minerals from the cells.
He wanted to prove that his initial test results were not accidental. He needed to get the samples of solar cells from used solar panels and extracting the sample minerals from the cells to prove it.
The biggest obstacle was that every machine he needed had to be custom made and there was nobody who had experience of making it.
He finally succeeded in extracting all the sample minerals and materials from the solar panel in 2021. As of 2022, prototype station is being upgraded to a fully automated station.