The 100,000-ton-per-year site includes glass-upgrading systems, supporting production of higher-specification glass products.
By DeAnne Toto, Editorial Director
Comstock Metals LLC, a subsidiary of Comstock Inc. that recycles photovoltaic, or solar, panels, has started its industry-scale solar recycling facility in Silver Springs, Nevada. The system has processed panels through every stage of production, completing the final milestone in testing and evaluation of each unit operation. Final integration will be completed later this month, at which point the ramp-up process to the first production milestone will begin.
The company also has installed and tested its glass-upgrading systems ahead of the original production plan, supporting the production of higher-specification glass products.
“We are now ready to finalize integration activities and the start of operations,” Comstock Inc. CEO Corrado De Gasperis says. “Completion of the full start-up milestones brings the full production system online and demonstrates operation from panel intake through the production of final offtake materials. The team is now evaluating multiple processing scenarios and [will] transition from commissioning to full continuous processing over the next few weeks. We anticipate reaching our first production milestone in September.”
“We have now brought the industry-scale production plant online, confirmed that each stage functions as designed and to specification and successfully stress-tested the processes at volumes representing the equipment’s stated capacities,” adds Fortunato Villamagna, president of Comstock Metals. “We are now leveraging the modular nature of the start-up process to train and develop our operating crews as we transition from a 24-hour, five-day-per-week schedule to a 24/7 schedule using 12-hour rotating shifts. These activities remain on schedule through August as we ramp toward our first production milestone of continuously operating at 25 percent of rated capacity.”
Villamagna adds that Comstock Metals also has advanced the development of its proprietary metals recovery processes. “These novel metal extraction technologies should enable the economic recovery of silver and other metals and materials from our industrial offcut stream,” he says. “This work has advanced significantly over the past few months and remains on schedule toward the achievement of our next major milestone, the development of our one-ton-per-day pilot system.”
The company also has established facilities in Cambridge, Ohio, and Central Valley, California, to serve as hubs for the responsible collection, preparation and aggregation of decommissioned photovoltaic panels for closed-loop recycling in its Nevada facility. 

source