Project description
New way to recycle LCD screens
Liquid-crystal display (LCD) technology has come a long way since the electronic calculators and digital watches introduced back in the 1970s. Today, these flat screens are found in a wide range of electronic products – from TVs to smartphones and tablets. There’s just one problem: the average life span of an LCD screen is 3-4 years after which they eventually end up in landfills. Furthermore, removing mercury tubes is a major safety issue. The EU-funded ALR4000 project has the solution. It will bring to market a fully automated LCD recycling technology. This Votechnik technology is a fully automated robotics solution for the high-speed depollution of LCDs at the rate of 60 LCDs per hour with the safe capture of mercury.
Objective
Votechnik is a high potential start up company developing a one of its kind fully automated LCD recycling technology for global markets. Approximately 250 million LCDs are sold globally per annum and all require recycling at their end of life. In Europe the WEEE directive stipulates that hazardous components must be removed from LCDs such as mercury containing CCFLs and liquid crystal containing sheets. While manual disassembly to remove these components is slow (5LCDs p/hr), costly and poses a health risk for the workers, there are limited solutions available on the market. Amoung these are specialised shredding technology for mercury wastes which requires high volume of mercury waste (including lamps and CCFL) to be economical (1t/hr) while the only alternative is semi-automated technologies that still require manual labour to separate the mercury tubes resulting in a slow process (12 LCDs p/hr). The Votechnik technology is a state of art robotics solution for high speed depollution of LCDs at 60 LCDs /hr, fully automated and safe capture of mercury. The ALR4000 project is focused on developing the TRL 8 verison of the technology and deploying it as 3 reference sites in key markets for North EU, South EU and USA. Votechnik intend on achieving a 10 sales of the technology from the demonstrations before the end of the project.
Fields of science
Not validated
Not validated
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2Coordinator
V94 Limerick
Ireland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.