To mark the one-year anniversary of P3—SOLARCYCLE’s R&D lab in Mesa, Arizona—we sat down with Chief Technology Officer Dr. Pablo Dias to discuss the company’s breakthroughs in solar panel recycling and what innovations are coming next.
Dr. Dias: That sounds like a Jesse Simons line to me!
I’ve always been drawn to environmental issues and sustainability. I studied materials engineering because it brought together my love of math, chemistry, and physics, but what really got me hooked was the idea of recycling—how it uses far less energy and is better for the planet.
Early in my career, I worked in a lab dealing with electronic waste—CRT monitors, phones, TVs—and became fascinated by how to recover value from these discarded materials. Around the same time, solar energy was picking up momentum, and I began to ask: what happens to solar panels when they’re no longer producing power? That became the focus of my master’s thesis, and eventually, years of research and publishing.
I spent my undergrad, master's and over a decade doing recycling research. I authored numerous seminal research papers and books in the field. When I eventually joined UNSW in Australia—a leader in solar technology—I had the chance to put it all together and focus entirely on solar end of life. I developed multiple patents in photovoltaic recycling during my tenure.
Dr. Dias: We’ve built one of the world’s top solar recycling R&D teams, with experts across the U.S., Brazil, and China working as one. Each lab brings unique strengths, and our global setup lets us innovate around the clock—P3 leads process development, while our other sites contribute specialized tools and skills.
We’ve made years of progress in just three because we think like a tech company, not just a recycler. Our 30+ engineers and scientists are solving complex challenges, not just managing waste. And we’re growing future talent through partnerships with top universities to keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
Dr. Dias: One big one is our method for extracting high-purity glass. It’s tough—solar glass has strict chemical requirements, and even tiny impurities can ruin it. We created a system that can cleanly separate and purify the glass so it can be reused in new solar panels. We’ve already made and tested panels using this recycled glass—and they perform just as well as new ones.
Dr. Dias: A major achievement was a project funded by the Department of Energy. At P3, we developed chemical methods to extract and purify metals like copper and silicon from end-of-life panels. We made a sheet of copper that was >99% pure, all from recycled panels. Same with silicon—we purified it to a very high level using chemical processes. That’s a huge step forward in what’s possible for recycling.
Dr. Dias: We’re really excited about our work on cadmium telluride (CdTe) panels. We’ve created an in-house process to recycle them efficiently, including recovering the semiconductor materials.
We’re also pushing the purity of the materials we recover—turning things like copper, silver and silicon into even more refined products. And we’ve made quality control a top priority. Every sample goes through detailed chemical analysis so we know exactly what’s in it—down to the milligram.
Dr. Dias: Because the solar recycling industry is still very young—and unfortunately, it’s easy to cut corners. We hold ourselves to a high standard of traceability. We can look at a single production run from a specific day and show exactly what materials were recovered. That level of transparency builds trust with customers.
To realize a truly circular solar economy, we can’t settle for average. Recycling needs to be excellent. Solar glass, for example, can be ruined by one part per million of contamination. We are setting the gold standard for the industry.
