Abstract

The reuse of metals is one of the oldest recycling activities known to humankind. Ferrous and nonferrous scrap metals alike can be recycled indefinitely which enables saving energy and primary resources with the benefit of reduced costs and emissions. For an economic management of scrap metals, different actors collect, process/separate scrap metals to concentrate the different metals in order to make them metallurgical treatable. The mechanical processing consists of shredding and shearing the underlying scrap metal waste stream into defined dimensions and possibly preseparating complex compounds for further separation of the heavy fraction into ferrous and nonferrous substreams through magnetic separators. The nonferrous fraction can be further treated to recover light and heavy nonferrous metals (e.g., aluminum, copper, zinc) by eddy current separation, mass density separation, and sensor-based sorting. The resmelting of the produced high-grade concentrates closes the loop of metal recycling.

Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call