Life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis of a laser-based end-of-life solar panel recycling process

End-of-life (EoL) photovoltaic (PV) panels contain valuable materials, making recycling essential to reduce dependence on virgin resources and improve economic returns. This paper conducts a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) for a recent laser-based PV recycling process using a case study. Three scenarios are evaluated and compared: landfilling, partial recycling, and full recycling. The LCA adopts a gate-to-gate boundary and utilises ReCiPe 2016 (H) at both midpoint and endpoint levels. Midpoint LCA results show that the full recycling process delivers ∼84% greater environmental benefits than a partial recycling process driven by the recovery of aluminium, silicon, glass, and silver chloride (AgCl). Endpoint analysis also shows higher environmental benefits per tonne (human health 70.8%, resource depletion 134.5%, ecosystem quality 365.87%). Economically, processing 8,000 tonnes per year (equivalent to ∼340,426 panels per year) is marginally profitable with a slightly positive net present value (NPV). However, such a high throughput has not been demonstrated in practice due to the technological limitations of the laser process. This highlights the trade-off between achieving higher environmental benefits and ensuring practical implementation feasibility, with the process being economically viable only at higher throughputs (>8,000 t yr −1 ). This laser-based route is not yet viable in current technical and market conditions.