The company plans to add metallurgical-grade silicon refining at the start of the next decade, fed by its solar panel recycling sites.
By DeAnne Toto, Editorial Director
Florida-based OnePlanet has introduced PRISM (Photovoltaic Recycling through Integrated Systems and Mechanics), a proprietary, automated process to recover copper, aluminum and high-purity silicon with ore-grade silver from end-of-life crystalline-silicon solar panels at the company’s facility. Developed over the past 15 months, PRISM is a fully mechanical process that does not use thermal or chemical separation steps.
The company says PRISM, which has completed all engineering testing, is a redesign of the line at its commercial demonstration facility in Green Cove Springs, Florida, which has processed end-of-life crystalline-silicon modules for more than two years.
CEO André Pujadas tells Recycling Today that OnePlanet’s process can remove 99 percent of the glass, which he adds is 75 percent of the weight of the panel. “Intuitively, if you can remove 75 percent of that burden, and then go after the copper, and then go after the aluminum and then go after the silicon with the silver, you have a better chance of deriving a higher purity concentration and a higher quality product, which delivers a higher premium, and in essence makes the economics durable in the long run.”
The company says PRISM recovers a silicon stream that exceeds 95 percent purity and carries approximately 1 percent silver as validated by independent third-party laboratories.
In repeated testing of the complete equipment configuration, PRISM removed 99.5 percent of module glass at 99 percent glass purity prior to size reduction, recovering clean, saleable glass while leaving the silicon- and silver-bearing cell material concentrated rather than diluted through mixed, crushed streams. Whether processing monofacial or bifacial modules, and whether the panels are intact or storm-damaged, OnePlanet says it was able to produce consistent results using PRISM.
“One percent silver is not a trace amount,” Pujadas says. “In metallurgical terms, that’s a substantial grade, richer than most mined ore. Combined with silicon above 95 percent purity, you have a single feedstock that can feed both an MGS [metallurgical-grade silicon] and silver refinery under one roof. Achieving this level of purity for the silicon stream is a substantial milestone in our pursuit of entering the metallurgical grade market while further diversifying the process to enable 5N [ultra-high purity] silver.”
Silicon and silver were added to the U.S. Critical Minerals List in November of last year, and both are materials the country imports in volume even as domestic semiconductor, defense, solar and advanced manufacturing grow, OnePlanet says.
In addition to the silicon stream, proprietary downstream processing steps produce a 99 percent-pure copper granulate stream and a 99.9 percent-pure aluminum (6063) product, according to the company.
OnePlanet has been awarded a $14.5 million investment tax credit allocation under the federal Qualifying Advanced Energy Project (48C) program to support construction of its first industrial-scale facility, dubbed “River City,” which will house the first fully integrated PRISM production lines. Established by the Inflation Reduction Act, the 48C program specifically supports domestic advanced manufacturing facilities that recover and reintroduce critical materials—such as silicon, aluminum, and copper—back into U.S. supply chains.
At its current site in Green Cove Springs, OnePlanet can handle 480,000 panels per year, Pujadas says. That will grow to 3.2 million panels, or 80,000 tons, when the company’s River City processing facility in that same city is open and operating at full capacity.
He says OnePlanet expects to order equipment for the first phase by the end of the year. “This timing also aligns with our 48C federal advanced manufacturing tax credit, and once we place orders with all the preselected OEMs [original equipment manufacturers], it’s off to the races,” Pujadas says. “During this equipment lead time, which is about four-to-five months, we would have completed all the infrastructure work, all the electrical and mechanical work, so when the equipment arrives, it’s merely just placement, utility tie-ins, and straight into hot commissioning. That sequencing puts us on track for first production around Q2 of 2027.”
However, he adds that the company’s timeline could be delayed by equipment lead times that are being stretched out.
“Our biggest area would be, and hopefully it’s not a problem, things on the electrical side like transformers [and] switchgear,” Pujadas continues. “Those things tend to be the longest lead time, but we’re kind of designing around that.”
The company plans to start with one shift and then progressively move to operating 24 hours per day, seven days per week.
OnePlanet’s modular design will facilitate scaling operations at River City. “We would have the entire infrastructure in place to put in as many recycling lines that adds to the cumulative total,” he explains. “However, we’re not going to put in all the lines at the same time, so we’re going to phase those lines in as supply comes on to minimize idle capacity.”
In addition to getting the company to revenue generation earlier, he says, this phased deployment is less capital intensive.
“The first line is the most costly line because you have to have all the infrastructure and auxiliary equipment in place to support the entire scale-up. When you do the first line, all the concrete work is done, all the mechanical work is done, all the electrical work is already done, and it’s just a matter of ordering the new lines and placing them. … The incremental processing lines are significantly cheaper than the first line.”
OnePlanet has also been developing an in-house-designed system to provide traceability to its clients. Pujadas says the company is handling that manually and instead wants to generate “a serial identification and labeling system that’s system-based, that’s continuous, that supports the third-party verification, that does real-time mass balances and is managed internally with the programmable logic controller that’s inherent in our recycling system.” He describes it as creating a digital chain of custody that seamlessly links the entire process—from the supplier and source of the panels to receipt of panels, including quantity, make and model, to production batch runs to recovered stream outputs with weights to sales orders to bills of lading to the end consumer.
“The other thing we are working on, which is huge, would be formalizing segregation of recovered products by material input vintage,” Pujadas says. “So, documented separation by batch and processing stage.” Today, the company is handling that using visual cues that do not scale well, he adds.
OnePlanet also is working to build and onboard the talent needed to run the River City project. “You either live or die by the strength of the team. So, our immediate focus would be on the functional side: engineering, accounting, commercial and procurement logistics, the functions that transition our operation from commercial to industrial. Just as critical will be the workflows on the floor, so training our operators,” Pujadas says. “We’re investing a lot in structured operator training with local technical colleges; the technical skills to run and troubleshoot the line and inculcating a safety culture to keep up with the size and scope of the operation.”

Adding MGS refining

OnePlanet’s next development program involves adding the MGS refining process itself, designed to recover the contained silver within the refining step, so silver emerges as a second finished product. That is targeted for 2030, Pujadas says, adding that silicon above 95 percent purity requires far less upgrading to reach MGS specification, significantly reducing the energy and emissions intensity of the refining step compared with producing MGS from virgin quartzite. Once the refinery is online, the silicon output from PRISM would be consumed internally.
He says OnePlanet envisions a hub-and-spoke model for its MGS refining process, with the PV panel recycling facilities serving as the spokes. “You have to collocate these recycling facilities close to the source because of the high freight logistics cost,” Pujadas says. “So, our intent would be let’s duplicate what we are doing in River City and let’s do that in other areas where there are large concentrations of solar installations. Do the same exercise cookie-cutter probably in Mojave, [Nevada], then probably do it in Texas, and somewhere Midwest and or Northeast—500-mile service territories around solar concentrations is how we think about it. The idea here would be these recovery facilities would feed a central metallurgical grade silicon producer that’s co-producing silver. Furthermore, we’re looking at the lower Mississippi basin to locate the MGS plant,” he says, citing favorable state incentives, logistics advantages, trained workforces and proximity to silicon and silver end markets.

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