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Argonne Processes Recover Automobile Plastics

Posted on: Thursday, 26 January 2006, 09:00 CST

By Anonymous

While usable parts and metals from out-of service automobiles are generally recycled, the remaining material-shredder residue consisting of polyurethane foam, polymers, metal oxides, glass, and dirt-often ends up in landfills. Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory are developing two processes to successfully recover materials such as plastics from shredder residue for re-use in automotive and other applications (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Chemist Joe Pomykala checks the flow of polyolefin coming from a tank that separates the recycled auto plastic concentrate into its constituent parts. Photo by Argonne National Laboratory.

The first is a bulk separation process to separate shredder residue. For this stage of the project, researchers designed and installed a large-scale shredder-residue separation pilot plant at Argonne.

"Our first year of the project, we focused on the bulk separation process to ensure that we were getting the most of the plastics into the polymer concentrate." said Ed Daniels, director of Argonne's Energy Systems Division. The project has resulted in a 95% recovery rate for plastics in the concentrate, Argonne reports. Approximately onethird of the plastic-intensive portion of the shredder residue is recovered as polymer concentrate.

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The group is now focused on the second process: recovering high- quality plastics from the concentrate. Researchers have set up a mixed plastics separation facility using a wet density/froth flotation process developed at Argonne. Researchers run the polymer concentrate from the first part of the process through various stages to recover specific automotive plastics. "We have recovered the polyolefins from the concentrate in the first stage at a sufficient quality to produce car parts," Daniels said.

"The economics are promising, but we really want to recover some of the other plastics from the polymer concentrate," he said. "We are working to determine how much material is actually recoverable and the quality at which we can recover each of the different polymers from the concentrate."

Copyright Minerals, Metals & Materials Society Jan 2006

Source: JOM

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