This startup designed a solar panel that can be taken apart
Siemen Brinksma is the co-founder of Biosphere Solar, which designed a solar panel that can be easily disassembled.
Published on June 5, 2025
Mauro swapped Sardinia for Eindhoven and has been an IO+ editor for 3 years. As a GREEN+ expert, he covers the energy transition with data-driven stories.
It was during his bachelor’s in business at Maastricht University that Siemen Brinksma became more aware of the scale of the climate crisis. “Right now is the first moment in history where humanity can destroy the biosphere in search of profits and power, or choose to take good care of it,” he says. His next step in his academic career was to join a master’s program in industrial ecology at the Delft University of Technology. This study track aims to help students combine entrepreneurship and sustainability.
While searching for ideas for his graduation project, he came across a video explaining the manufacturing process of solar panels. “At some point, I saw they would cover the solar cells in epoxy glue. And I thought: ‘Don’t you know that we will never be able to take them apart again?’”, he says. Five years later, Biosphere Solar, the startup he cofounded, launched a fully dismountable solar panel.
As solar energy drives the world’s energy supply decarbonization, another problem arises: the disposal of solar panels at the end of their life. A research by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimated that, by 2050, we could produce as much as 78 million tons of solar panel waste. Siemen and his team don’t want this immense pile of solar modules to be simply discarded.
The Green Transition Drivers
Reducing emissions, optimizing resource use, and adopting green energy are some of the practices we need to adopt to transition towards a greener economy. But who’s behind the green transition? In our series, The Green Transition Drivers, we spotlight entrepreneurs and innovators working to make our economy greener.
View The Green Transition Drivers SeriesBiosphere Solar’s way
Biosphere Solar is working to change the industry from the inside, considering the end of life of solar panels while producing them. Their secret lies in the lamination process, a key step in the manufacturing of solar modules. In conventional manufacturing, this step of the assembly consists of ‘sandwiching’ solar cells between two or more layers of glass. The coatings are bonded together using a layer of ethyl vinyl acetate — a resistant plastic glue — as the lamination machine exerts pressure on the modules, thoroughly sealing them.
On the one hand, glue ensures a strong seal for the solar cells; on the other, it makes it nearly impossible to recycle solar panels at the end of their life. Biosphere Solar swaps glue for a butyl rubber edge seal, a material used for its high insulating properties in windows. The Rotterdam-based startup’s panel has comparable features to conventional solar panels. Nevertheless, this tweak is decisive in disassembling them.
On the left, the solar panel, on the right, a step of the manufacturing process. - © Biosphere Solar
Solar panels' end of life
When dismantling the panel, the aluminum frame is taken off, the cables are disconnected from the junction boxes, and, at this point, the stack of glass and cells remains. Then, with a hot blade, the rubber sealing can be effortlessly removed, allowing for easy and direct recovery of both the glass sheets and the cells.
“Recycling is, to us, the lowest value option,” explains Siemen. “To truly embrace circularity, the cells can be upgraded, adding another layer of cells on top of the existing ones, for instance. Or it should be easy to replace only the few broken cells a panel may have. What we want to do now is to bring a more circular design to the table, so that, at the end of the solar panels’ life, we can decide what is best to do with them,” he continues.
Getting their way through the industry
The solar industry is exploring options for recycling solar panels at the end of their life. Once solar panels reach the end of their life, typically around 20 to 25 years, recyclers are responsible for disposing of them. And while most are accustomed to throwing them into a shredder, others are starting to recover the glass, but are still left with the problem of the lamination layer.
Since its founding in 2020, Biosphere Solar has been striving to introduce its technology to the industry. Currently, it has secured manufacturing partnerships with a Chinese company and the Dutch Kameleon Solar. The concept is yet to receive full certifications. Nevertheless, selling solar panels is not the end goal.
“Rather, we see ourselves as a private research institute. We have this technology that can make this industry circular, and we want to spread it as far as we can to make as many solar panels circular as possible by 2050,” says the co-founder. To this extent, the startup is also developing new machines for its manufacturing partners to facilitate the adoption of the new sealing technology.
No way around China
China dominates solar panel production. Around 70% of the world’s solar panel production happens there. This share rises even further for critical components, such as the wafers needed to make cells. 97% of the materials come from there.
One way or another, even when setting up a plant in Europe, local manufacturers still depend on Beijing. “The whole industry relies on China, so competing with them is tough. There is no way around it; we have to convince Chinese producers to adopt this technology. At the same time, we can drive this change from Europe, while partnering with manufacturers from all over the world.
Impact
The journey to finding the right way to make an impact took different steps for Siemen. The first pathway was activism, which he found to be critical but not constructive. The next stop was an experience in a large corporation, where he realized he was just a small cog in a much larger machine, and bringing new ideas to leave a lasting mark takes a long time.
“Then I joined Precious Plastic, a global plastic recycling initiative, which I found cool and inspiring. I liked the idea of keeping technologies open source, which I mutated for Biosphere Solar, too,” he recalls.
Since founding Biosphere Solar, he has found the correct dimension for him to make a difference. Changing the solar industry status quo is still quite a journey. “We are looking for another industrial partner to scale up and further test our technology. We are eager to know all the benefits and weaknesses to get a clear picture and strengthen the case for our innovation to become the new standard.”