New Technologies for the Environment: Continuous Belt Air to Vacuum to Air (AVA) Technology for Remanufacturing and Recycling in High Technology Industries

这个环境新技术项目的目标是调整空气真空（AVA）输送系统，以满足回收和再制造的需求。如果将AVA系统引入到印刷电路板（pcb）和太阳能电池的回收和再制造过程中，预计可以提高回收和再制造的效率，并提高成本效益。pcb的制造是一个非常大的行业（全球200亿美元），太阳能电池行业的增长非常大（每年20%）。高科技产业对经济的贡献很大。高科技工业的大多数产品都是在抽走空气的系统（真空环境）中制造的。目前，在高技术产业中，回收和再制造极为有限。许多产品在其生命周期结束时最终被填埋，造成污染。许多用于制造的相同真空工艺也可用于回收和再制造。由于真空处理的低通量和高成本，这些提供巨大环境效益的工艺目前尚未使用。为了降低薄膜真空加工的成本，开发了一种独特的带式输送系统，将离散的物体从空气输送到真空中进行加工，然后再返回到空气中。这项研究的环境影响将是减少进入堆填区的废物和相关的水污染。回收和再制造也将减少这些产品制造的整体污染。

The objective of this New Technologies for the Environment project is to adapt the air to vacuum (AVA) conveyor system to meet the needs of recycling and remanufacturing. It is expected that the recycling and remanufacturing of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and solar cells can be enhanced and made more cost effective if the AVA system can be introduced into the process. The manufacturing of PCBs is a very large industry ($20 billion globally) and there is a very large growth (20% annually) in the solar cell industry. High technology industries contribute significantly to the economy. Most of the products of the high technology industries are manufactured in systems where the air has been removed (vacuum environments). At the present time, recycling and remanufacturing is extremely limited in the high technology industries. Many of the products at the end of their life cycle end up in landfills and contribute to the pollution. Many of the same vacuum processes used for manufacturing can also be used for recycling and remanufacturing. These processes which offer great environmental benefits are not currently used due to the low throughput and high cost of vacuum processing. In order to reduce the cost of vacuum processing of thin films, a unique belt conveyor system has been developeda that transports discrete objects from air to vacuum for processing and then back to air. The environmental impact of this study will be to reduce the waste going into the landfills and the associated water pollution. The recycling and remanufacturing will also reduce the overall pollution from the manufacturing of these products.