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

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是通过提供在太空中回收或采购的原材料，直接在轨道上实现在轨制造。在轨制造硬件可以通过显著降低发射成本，潜在地降低空间操作的成本和合格前置时间。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太空材料进行太空生产，解决了轨道制造的核心问题。该项目将为广泛的空间活动带来重大变革，促进循环空间经济，降低轨道电力成本，同时为卫星/碎片回收提供经济激励，从而减少轨道碎片和拥堵。通过减少发射质量、成本、开发时间以及当前的有效载荷和尺寸限制，为按需在轨制造提供从太空采购的原材料，有可能提高美国的经济竞争力；通过改善军事力量投射和后勤弹性，支持美国国防；支持未来对太阳系和深空的科学研究。扩大长期勘探任务的限制，并通过现场制造和回收能力减少对货运任务的依赖。SBIR第一期项目提出开发一种在轨道环境中回收光伏的新方法。空间的真空环境对于半导体制造的许多步骤都是最佳的，并且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，虽然真空对硅生产总体上是有益的，但现代化学制造中几乎每一个过程都依赖于重力，需要适应微重力环境。该项目的重点是开发一种流化床反应器（FBR），用于从废弃的硅光伏电池和各种氢源中模拟微重力生产单硅烷气体，因为它构成了硅生产线中最关键的一步。在这个项目的范围内，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，并将开发一个模拟微重力的台式原型来表征颗粒和气体流动的力学，为设想的应用建立其在太空中处理的可行性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.