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

该环境新技术项目的目标是调整空气真空（AVA）输送机系统，以满足回收和再制造的需求。 如果能在工艺中引入AVA系统，预计可加强印刷电路板和太阳能电池的回收和再制造，并使其更具成本效益。PCB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%）。高科技产业对经济贡献巨大。高科技工业的大多数产品都是在空气已被移除的系统（真空环境）中制造的。 目前，回收和再制造在高科技产业中非常有限。许多产品在其生命周期结束时最终进入垃圾填埋场，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。 由于真空处理的低产量和高成本，这些提供巨大环境效益的工艺目前没有被使用。为了降低薄膜真空处理的成本，开发了一种独特的带式输送机系统，该系统将离散物体从空气输送到真空中进行处理，然后再返回空气。这项研究对环境的影响，将是减少运往堆填区的废物和有关的水质污染。回收和再制造也将减少这些产品制造过程中的总体污染。

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.