SBIR Phase I: Silane Recycling from Decommissioned Photovoltaics using Microgravity-analog Fluidized Bed Reactor with Sonication.

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是，通过直接在轨道上提供在空间回收或来源的原材料，实现在轨制造。在轨制造硬件可以通过显著降低发射成本，潜在地减轻空间操作的成本和鉴定周期。然而，在轨制造仍然需要廉价的原料。该项目的商业方法是利用空间材料进行空间生产，解决了轨道制造的核心问题。该项目将为各种空间活动带来重大变革，促进循环空间经济，降低轨道动力成本，同时为卫星/碎片回收提供经济激励，从而缓解轨道碎片和拥堵。为按需提供来自太空的原材料，在轨制造有潜力通过降低发射质量、成本、开发时间以及当前的有效载荷和大小限制来提高美国的经济竞争力，通过提高军事力量投射和后勤弹性来支持美国国防，支持未来对太阳系和深空的科学研究，扩大长期探索任务的限制，并通过就地制造和回收能力减少对货运任务的依赖。这个SBIR第一阶段项目提议开发一种在轨道环境中回收光伏的新方法。在半导体制造的许多步骤中，太空的真空环境将是最佳的，可以被认为是轨道制造的高潜力应用，使硅生产能够远远超出目前地面真空室瓶颈的限制。然而，尽管真空总体上将有利于硅的生产，但现代化学制造中的几乎每一个过程都依赖于重力，需要适应微重力环境下的运行。该项目的重点是开发一种沸腾床反应器(FBR)，用于从寿命结束的硅光伏和各种氢源中模拟微重力生产单硅烷气体，因为它是硅生产线中最关键的一步。在该项目的范围内，将对光伏电池产生的颗粒进行表征，将开发一个热化学反应的基本模型来确定设计参数标称，并将开发一个台式原型来表征模拟微重力下的颗粒和气体流动的力学，以确定其用于设想的应用的空间处理的可行性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to enable on-orbit manufacturing by providing raw materials recycled or sourced in space, directly on-orbit. Manufacturing hardware on-orbit can potentially relieve the costs and qualification lead times of space operations by significantly reducing launch costs. However, on-orbit manufacturing will still require inexpensive feedstock. This project’s business approach which is space production from in-space materials addresses this core problem of orbital manufacturing. This project will bring significant transformations to a wide range of space activities, promoting a circular space economy, lowering the cost of orbital power, and simultaneously providing an economic incentive for satellite/debris reclamation, thus mitigating orbital debris and congestion. Providing raw materials sourced in space for on-demand, on-orbit manufacturing holds the potential to increase the economic competitiveness of the US through financially feasible space operations by reducing launch mass, costs, development time, and current payload and size limitations, supporting the US national defense by improving military power projection and logistics resilience, supporting future scientific studies of the solar system and deep space, expanding the limits of long-term exploration missions, and reducing dependence on cargo missions through in situ manufacturing and recycling capability.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop a novel approach for recycling photovoltaics in an orbital environment. The vacuum environment of space will be optimal for many steps in semiconductor manufacturing and can be considered a high-potential application for orbital manufacturing, enabling silicon production to scale well beyond the current constraints of terrestrial vacuum chamber bottlenecks. However, while the vacuum will be beneficial overall to silicon production, nearly every process in modern chemical manufacturing is reliant on gravity and needs to be adapted to function in a microgravity environment. This project focuses on the development of a fluidized bed reactor (FBR) for microgravity analog production of monosilane gas from end-of-life silicon photovoltaics and various hydrogen sources, as it constitutes the most critical step in the silicon production line. Within the scope of this project, particulates produced from PV cells will be characterized, a basic model of the thermochemical reactions will be developed to determine design parameter nominals and a benchtop prototype to characterize the mechanics of particle and gas flows in an analog to microgravity will be developed, establishing its feasibility for in-space processing for the envisioned applications.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.