Abstract—This study aims to develop a material recycling
process for end-of-life solar panels, focusing on the recovery of
high-purity glass and its application in glass wool production.
Solar panels contain more than 60% glass by weight, and their
disposal is expected to increase significantly in the coming
decades. Because of this, the researchers developed a thermal
decomposition and multi-stage sorting process to separate glass,
copper wires, and silicon cells. The process successfully
recovered glass cullet with a purity of 99.999%, which
accounted for 86% of the panel weight after treatment. Copper
and silver were also recovered at concentrations of 55% and
8539 mg/kg, respectively, which shows potential for reuse as
valuable materials. The recovered glass cullet was used at 100%
to produce glass wool prototypes. Performance evaluation
showed that the thermal conductivity of the prototype was
0.040 W/m·K, which is comparable to conventional products
made from window glass (0.041 W/m·K). Environmental safety
was confirmed through leaching tests, with all measured values
well below regulatory limits. These results show the feasibility of
converting waste solar panel glass into high-value insulation
materials. The proposed system offers a practical solution for
resource circulation and landfill reduction, which contributes to
sustainable waste management and environmental protection.
Keywords—used solar panels, recycling, glass wool, glass
recovery
Cite: Development of High-Purity Glass Recovery Technology from End-of-Life Solar Panels for Applying to Materials for Glass Wool Productions, "Akihiro Murayama, Shuji Owada, and Toru Matsumoto," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 56-63, 2026.
Copyright © 2026 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).