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New North American Product Family Release from Smart Factory Design
March 22, 2024 | Smart Factory DesignEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
Smart Factory Design is pleased to announce a new system technology and supply chain model for providing Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) Wastewater Recycling Systems to the North American market. Smart Factory Design is an international public benefit company focused on environmental sustainability and autonomous processes for the Printed Circuit Board, IC Substrate, and General Metal Finishing industries.
Alexander Stepinski, Smart Factory Design's CEO and Founder shares the exciting announcement that, "Through an exclusive global partnership with Mega S.A., the global leader in advanced electrolytic membrane technology for challenging industrial applications, and Integrated Process Systems, a leading domestic process equipment supplier to the US Microelectronics and GMF industries, we have drastically reduced the investment hurdles associated with Zero Liquid Discharge Recycling Systems."
Mega is now providing their unique technology to IPS who will manufacture the turnkey systems for the North American market in Cedar City, Utah USA. The core of the recycling system is a portfolio of unique physical treatment methods to destroy the challenging organic contamination present in electronics manufacturing, as well as a galvanic membrane system which replaces the evaporator used in traditional ZLD systems.
The key takeaways from the innovative new design are that ZLD factories no longer need to generate CO2 by burning tons of fossil fuel with the evaporator to achieve ZLD, while gaining the capability to achieve non-detectable TOC and TDS and breaking the connected commercial strategies (ie. proprietary chemical and membrane consumables) of the traditional supplier base which disadvantage the fabricator.
Smart Factory Design also complements this system with a unique crystallization process from Eco-Techno Srl. in Italy, which has been developed based upon over 10 years of prior experience with PCB Fab waste. The overall system investment and operating costs are a fraction of that of all previous closed-loop ZLD technologies. For the first time, costs are competitive with traditional discharge systems. The efficient cost structure was achieved by a supply chain designed for OEM direct sales using the most efficient technology – without middlemen and outsourcing. Also, while the systems are highly automated and need near-zero labor, in North America we also offer local service up to and including full system operation as a third-party subcontractor. These systems are the first wastewater systems in the PCB Fab industry designed for Industry 4.0 from the ground up. They are equipped with an advanced redundant sensor array, machine learning, and fault management contingencies to maximize efficiency like never before. The systems even perform SPC on the incoming wastewater quality from the process to alert if conveyor jam-ups and equipment failures occur before manufacturing notices in most cases. In addition, they can automatically re-segregate the incoming waste as needed (on the fly). Due to the technological efficiencies that have been achieved the system footprints are also only 20-40% the size of traditional systems on average for equivalent capacity/contingency. This makes previously impossible retrofits and space-constrained situations very feasible for upgrade now as well.
Stepinski and his team will be presenting the details of this game-changing new product family at the IPC-APEX show in Anaheim with IPS at Booth# 4622.
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