Trash to cash - IBM makes waste into energy

Greenbang is doing backflips at this. You’ve got to see it. Go on, it’s only two minutes.

It’s a shame about that man’s voice, which sound like he has a beard and wears sandals, but this really is something else.

IBM says it has found a way to turn waste into solar energy. We’ll be talking to IBM again soon.

The main points are:

• The new process uses a specialised pattern removal technique to repurpose scrap semiconductor wafers – thin discs of silicon material used to imprint patterns that make finished semiconductor chips for computers, mobile phones, video games, and other consumer electronics – to a form used to manufacture silicon-based solar panels
• IBM is now able to more efficiently remove the intellectual property from the wafer surface, making these wafers available either for reuse in internal manufacturing calibration as “monitor wafers” or for sale to the solar cell industry, which must meet a growing demand for the same silicon material to produce photovoltaic cells for solar panels
• The new process was recently awarded the “2007 Most Valuable Pollution Prevention Award” from The National Pollution Prevention Roundtable (NPPR).