New Energy Solid Waste Recycling: A Review and Outlook on Technologies from Structure Preservation to Structural Reconstruction

The booming clean energy industry has driven the expansion of photovoltaic (PV) and lithium-ion battery (LIB) sectors, causing the accumulation of new energy solid wastes such as wind turbine blades (WTB), PV modules and LIBs. Such solid wastes exhibit prominent characteristics such as multi-layer composition, a high degree of cross-linking, and multi-component coupling, presenting both high resource value and significant recycling challenges. This paper systematically reviews the material structural characteristics, EoL attributes, and current resource utilization status of these three new energy solid wastes. Existing recycling technologies are classified into three categories based on material structural evolution and value realization pathways: structure-retaining mechanical conversion, selective component extraction, and structure-reconstruction-based full-component upcycling. Furthermore, this study further compares various recycling routes in terms of recycling depth, value creation and development potential. The analysis indicates that, in the face of the impending large-scale retirement wave, relying solely on morphological reuse or partial component extraction is inadequate to meet the demands for efficient, high-value, and low-carbon recycling. Consequently, structure-reconstruction-based full-component upcycling will emerge as a crucial development direction for the resource utilization of new energy solid wastes. This paper provides a theoretical reference for related technological research and development, process optimization, and industrial system layout.: