Advanced Physical Separation Technology for Rare Metal Recycling

Abstract

Physical separation is a technology to produce valuable metal powder from metals included in waste products. Many separation technologies are already used in conventional recycling processes for the recovery of common and precious metals. However, there are few separation technologies for the recovery of expensive metals such as tantalum and rare earth metals, which are called “rare-metals” in Japan, from small domestic appliances (SDAs). Advanced grinding, sorting and separation techniques have been investigated in our research group in order to recycle these metals from SDAs. Our representative studies for advanced physical separation processes are introduced, and the future picture of physical separation which we have painted is described in this report.