Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1372612
86 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2021 try would be really keen on. Is this ready for delivery to factories who are looking for it? Stepinski: We've made a new version of our system. e original version I developed was based on ion exchange with some vacuum dis- tillation. e new version of our system utiliz- es membrane separation, advanced oxidative processes, selective ion exchange for metals, and some electrowinning; it's a different de- sign. e previous system required rinse wa- ter segregation. is new design is a zero-sort system. We have no rinse water segregation in this factory; it's a great innovation. It's just like your recycling at home, when you have three trash cans out front and somebody puts the ba- nana peel in the glass-only bin, it's a problem. e garbage guy doesn't want to pick up your stuff and he sends you a nasty note and you have a bad day. e current system can combine all the rins- es together and it then creates two streams. One is ultra-pure semiconductor grade water, and the other is a concentrated waste that's dis- tilled; it's that simple. And all the metals are re- moved; we don't have any metal in our sludge. We sell it; we recover it all. e metal recov- ery actually pays the operating cost of the sys- tem. If you look at the economics of a normal board shop, the people are shipping out met- al and paying for people to take valuable met- al. It's insane. With our process, you pay for the whole operating cost just through metal recov- ery. is is what we found when we did our analysis. Both the Vicor and SEL shops are getting this new system. e Vicor factory installa- tion is this summer; the SEL one is in Q2 2022. You're probably going to hear soon that we have a much larger scale project for a recycling system in Asia. I think this is something that will hit the news in the next few months. I would sell the new system to other peo- ple in the U.S., but nobody calls us. And we're not really marketing too much because we're pretty busy. I think most of the board shops in the U.S., though, are not really interested in this sort of system unless they are forced to do something. It's a non-value-added cost, right? It's not helping them make money. Matties: But it can help them save money. Stepinski: You must replace something you al- ready have. It's like when you buy a roof from Tesla—why would you go do it if you have a good roof ? When the old roof is dead then maybe the solar roof makes sense instead of the panels. It's the same kind of story. A lot of people have fully depreciated, decades-old wastewater systems in place and it's not easy to change. Our system could fit, though, inside most existing systems. Matties: If they do decide to change, is it a rela- tively simple installation? Stepinski: It is. At an Asian scale, we're at 2–10% the size of a typical system in Asia to do the same thing and everything is recycled as op- posed to just throwing it out. In the U.S., how- ever, it's a smaller scale; it's probably like about a quarter of the size of a typical U.S. system. Do people have space? A lot of the industry is in California; there are a lot of restrictions on space there. You have legacy wet process per- mits and things like that. Since this is the wet process area, you can't do too much with it. I think the interest so far has come from new factories, as well as people who want to pro- mote being green, for some reason or anoth- er. ere is also the situation where a facto- ry will be shut down by the Chinese govern- ment if they don't do something about it. If you must choose between updating your wastewa- ter system or moving your factory to the other side of China, the wastewater system is typical- ly a much simpler solution. So, this is how the market looks for us. We see that it's really a high growth area, I think, long term. As more and more people become aware, you realize how much industrial waste