From E-Waste to Green Energy: Waste as a Critical Material Source for Photovoltaic Technologies: A Case Study for Industrial Symbiosis Rhys Charles, Swansea University, UK Peter Douglas, Swansea University, UK Trystan Watson, Swansea University, UK David Penney, Swansea University, UK The Asian Conference on Sustainability, Energy & the Environment 2015 Official Conference Proceedings Abstract The world faces the limits of current ‘linear’ economic models due to resource security issues, growing population and increasing per-capita consumption. Transition is necessary to a new ‘circular economy’: a resource-efficient industrial economy which decouples growth from resource consumption. This model mirrors nature with materials moving in cycles and losses from the system minimized. Available resources remain economically productive throughout multiple product cycles. Reuse/recycling, eco-design of products, minimization of environmental impacts and renewable energy generation are prioritized. The concept of ‘waste’ is replaced with one of ‘resource’. Enhanced resource efficiency delivers economic, environmental and social benefits. Process waste is eliminated through industrial symbiosis, becoming feedstock of other processes. A major obstacle to transition is a lack of familiarity with the economic opportunities within circular economy. However, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), the planet’s fastest growing waste stream, is a valuable source of materials including precious and ‘critical’ metals. Appropriate recycling technology can directly generate ‘added value’ precursor compounds for use in manufacturing, allowing additional value to be derived from WEEE over that possible through traditional recycling chains. The potential for recovery of platinum from waste thermocouples as chloroplatinic acid for use in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) has been examined, and shown to potentially increase derivable value of platinum by a factor of five. This ‘closed loop’ strategy reduces environmental impacts of recycling and DSC fabrication, while generating revenue from wastes and reducing manufacturing costs for DSCs. This simultaneously solves a waste management issue and mitigates materials criticality issues. Keywords: platinum, recycling, materials recovery, hexachloroplatinic acid, circular economy, industrial symbiosis, sustainable development, thermocouple, dye- sensitized solar cell (DSC). iafor The International Academic Forum www.iafor.org