Solar Energy

Florida Power & Light and its subsidiary Gulf Power came up with a unique solution to disposing of the boxes and packaging for the 200,000 to 250,000 solar panels recently installed at its Cotton Creek Solar Energy Center in Escambia County and Blue Spring Solar Energy Center in Jackson County.

Approximately 10,000 refrigerator-sized boxes along with their accompanying wooden pallets were turned into mulch and reused on-site at both of the energy centers.

With the Coperion extruder, the ZSW can now work on the very latest issues in the production of battery electrodes. In the current manufacturing process for this type of electrodes, the active materials are drawn in a film from a solution of the toxic NMP (N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone) onto a carrier film and then slowly dried in long ovens. In this research project the use of extruders will mean that NMP will not be needed at all in the future. Furthermore, the required drying time will also be drastically reduced and batteries with higher energy content can be produced.