Sha Liang

The rapid deployment of perovskite solar modules (PSMs) raises an urgent need for recycling strategies that can selectively recover critical metals from their complex multilayer architectures. Here, an architecture‐guided sequential recycling strategy is developed by coupling interfacial accessibility with calcination‐induced phase transformation. Ultrasonic water leaching removes >99.8% of Pb from the perovskite layer without detectable dissolution of other target metals. During subsequent HCl leaching, the polymer encapsulant functions as a physical barrier, enabling >99.9% In leaching while protecting the Sn‐coated Cu ribbon from acid attack. Air calcination then removes the encapsulant and promotes the formation of CuO and chemically stable SnO ₂ , creating a strong contrast in leaching behavior that enables selective Cu dissolution in an acetic acid‐hydrogen peroxide system. Overall, recovery ratios of In and Cu exceed 99.7% and 96.1%, respectively, while most of the initial Sn is retained in a Sn‐rich residue. The process further achieves a net economic benefit of about 4.735 USD/m ² module, demonstrating an economically promising and architecture‐enabled route for selective multi‐metal recovery from discarded industrial PSMs.

The accelerating deployment of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) has intensified scrutiny of their lead content and associated environmental risks. We combined dynamic material flow analysis with freshwater ecotoxicity modeling to project lifecycle lead stocks, flows, and leakage for PSCs in China from 2026 to 2060, benchmarked against crystalline silicon (c-Si) photovoltaics including a prospective lead-free soldering pathway. Under business-as-usual conditions, the cumulative lead input into the PSC life cycle reaches 29.2 ± 3.1 kt, 58.9% of which is lost, mainly in manufacturing. However, PSCs reduce cumulative lead leakage by up to 94% relative to the lead-solder c-Si baseline at equivalent installed capacity under the best practice scenario. All PSC mitigation scenarios, including cleaner production, extended service lifetimes, and enhanced recycling, also outperform the c-Si lead-free trajectory by 2060. These domestic environmental gains are complicated by international trade, which spatially redistributes environmental burdens. Developed economies outsource manufacturing impacts while tropical developing countries incur domestic leakages up to 3-fold higher than upstream leakage, driven by accelerated degradation and limited recycling infrastructure. These findings demonstrate that lead does not constitute a prohibitive barrier to PSC commercialization, if governance evolves from material restrictions toward transnational extended producer responsibility systems.

The efficient separation of monovalent and divalent ions remains a core challenge in desalination and ion resource recovery. Here, we propose an electrochemical confinement strategy to spatially organize EDTA into aligned arrays within the one-dimensional transport channels of TFP-Tag membrane with a pore size of 1.1 nm. This structure establishes a biomimetic, gradient-functionalized conical nanochannel. The negatively charged upper channel regions capture and block divalent ions, while the lower regions with their larger pore size and an anion-affinitive local environment facilitate monovalent ion transport, thereby achieving highly selective monovalent/divalent ion separation. The membrane exhibits outstanding monovalent/divalent ion separation performance in multi-ion mixed solutions, with Na ⁺ flux reaching 10.6 mmol m ⁻² hour ⁻¹ and the selectivity of Na ⁺ /Mg ²⁺ exceeding 500. This breakthrough separation behavior is attributed to an induced transport lag effect arising from the synergy between the COF structure and the chelation-assisted retardation of divalent ions by EDTA. This study establishes a theoretical framework for the rational design of ion-separation membranes exhibiting simultaneous high-selectivity and high-flux performance.