Italian scientists have successfully developed a new technology that can recover silver from discarded solar panels with a recovery rate of up to 98%. The relevant paper was published in the latest issue of the journal Environmental Technology and Innovation. To address climate change, scientists are vigorously promoting and adopting renewable energy sources, including solar energy, to replace heavily polluting fossil fuels. However, with the widespread application of these green technologies, new problems have also emerged, among which how to dispose of discarded solar panels has become a major challenge. Previous studies have shown that metals such as iron, steel, and aluminum in solar panels are relatively easy to recycle, but the recycling of metals such as silver is fraught with difficulties. Because silver and copper are almost always inseparable and difficult to separate. The latest research provides an economical and efficient silver recycling solution. The new method cleverly utilizes alkali activated persulfate and ammonia. Among them, persulfate acts as an oxidant to generate copper oxide through chemical reactions. The obtained copper oxide can be used as a protective layer to prevent copper leakage. The research team determined the optimal material ratio and reaction conditions by continuously adjusting parameters and conducting various reactions: ammonia concentration of 0.5 mol/L, potassium persulfate concentration of 0.2 mol/L, and reaction time of 1 hour. Under such conditions, the new method can successfully separate 85% of silver from the sample. By utilizing the electro deposition oxidation-reduction reaction, they further increased the recovery rate to 98.7%. (New Society)