SOLUTION / PUBLIC SOURCE RECORD
Nuvosil recycles silicon from solar cell production
- Published 23 March 2023; updated 21 September 2026; estimated reading time 2 minutes. Status is “Under development”; categories are Solar energy (Energy) and Circular economy.
- Nuvosil’s Low Energy Recycling (LER) process is intended to recycle excess silicon powder from solar-wafer production. The page says slicing silicon blocks into wafers loses about 40% of the starting material as fine powder, which may be landfilled or remelted through costly, energy-intensive processes that can produce lower-quality material.
- Hydro and Nuvosil developed a screw extruder based on Hydro and NTNU aluminium-recycling technology. It processes silicon powder and other metals with little heat and energy. The output, Low Energy Master Alloy (LEMA), is intended for high-value applications such as aluminium production as a replacement for conventional metallurgical-grade silicon. The stated composition is 70% silicon and 30% aluminium.
- Development partners/supporters listed: Nuvosil AS, Norsk Hydro ASA, Reifenhäuser GmbH, CEMTEC GmbH, SINTEF and NTNU.
- Claimed process benefits versus conventional remelting: up to 90% less energy and 40–50% lower costs. Reusing material otherwise treated as waste is presented as a way to increase recycling and circularity in solar manufacturing.
- Market figures stated: solar-cell market growth forecast at 10–15% annually; Nuvosil estimated LEMA demand potential at 180,000 tonnes in 2022 and about 240,000 tonnes in 2025. These forecasts are dated. The page says the process was tested at small scale and gives planned milestones of industrial prototype testing in August 2021, qualification by December 2021 and commercial operations in early autumn 2022; those plans are historical and the current page still labels the solution under development.
- Linked to SDG 9, Industry, innovation and infrastructure, and SDG 12, Responsible consumption and production, through resource efficiency and reduced production waste.
- Contact: Bjørn-Olav Brelin, Founder & CEO, bbrelin@nuvosil.com. Phone number is behind a collapsed reveal control. Company: NUVOSIL AS, c/o Norwegian Energy Company ASA, Nedre Vollgate 1, 0158 Oslo, Norway; nuvosil.com.