New Eldan ring shredders are designed to handle obsolete electronics.
The Danish company Eldan Recycling A/S is promoting two models of its Eldan ring shredders: the S1000-40 and the S1500-60. The 25-to-35-metric-ton machines are equipped with 250kW to 400kW electric motors. In a press release, the company says the new machines operate in accordance with the anvil priniciple as opposed to other Eldan machines that operate on the cutting principle. The wear parts, such as impact rings and grates, are manufactured from cast steel, ensuring a long lifespan, the company says. Eldan’s shredders are mainly used to recycle waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), tough cables like underground cables and aluminum in high volume (up to 7 metric tons input per hour). “We are contented that these machines have been so well-received and accepted on the market. They have proven their efficiency and in recent years we have received orders from countries like Latin America, the United States, Japan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Romania and Denmark,” says Toni Reftman, Eldan managing director. “Due to this fact and the fact that especially the amount of WEEE scrap is increasing worldwide, we are introducing the next generation of Eldan ring shredders, starting with the shredder S1500-100. “This huge and high-powered machine with increased rotor diameter and process chamber can process much larger items at a much higher capacity," he continues. "The weight of the shredder S1500-100 will be almost 50 metric tons, and it will have a 630kW electrical motor.” Since 1956 Eldan Recycling has been involved in designing machinery to recycle tires, cables and WEEE.
New technologies continue to emerge to maximize resources recovered from obsolete electronics.
Several recycling technology vendors described the methods and techniques they are bringing to the e-scrap market during presentations at Electronics Recycling Asia, held in mid-November 2013 in Singapore. Among the equipment makers and the technologies they described were: • Zhou Jun of China-based shredding equipment maker Hunan Vary Tech Co. Ltd., said his company enjoys 60 percent market share in China’s e-scrap shredding sector and also has sold plants in Turkey and Spain. He said a typical Hunan Vary system includes a double-shaft primary shredder and a vertical crusher with a “specialized kneading technique” designed to separate materials found in electronic scrap. • Akio Yoshinari of Dowa Eco-Systems Singapore Pte Ltd. said the company’s Japanese-designed smelting system is increasingly being used to “turn old cell phones into a gold mine.” Users of the system have been able to extract about 300 grams (10.6 ounces) of gold and 200 grams (7 ounces) of silver from one ton of cell phones (or about 100,000 phones), according to Yoshinari. • Andres Krebs, CEO of Switzerland-based BluBox Trading AG, says his company’s system has been designed to properly handle end-of-life LCD, LED and plasma screens as well as fluorescent tubes, LED lighting and new CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) light bulbs. The BluBox shredders are enclosed and contain vacuums to collect the vapors and dusts that would be hazardous in a typical shredding plant environment. • Ekin Kis of Turkey-based Emak Refining & Recycling Systems described that firm’s crushing and electrolyte solution-based systems designed to handle printed circuit boards, motherboards and CPUs (computer processing units). The system is designed to fully recover precious metals and copper in a less capital intensive manner than a smelter, according to Kis. • Les Liddiard of United Kingdom-based Tectronics International Ltd., told delegates his firm has commissioned more than 80 of its plasma arc technology systems to recover precious metals from such streams as shredded printed circuit boards. He said the system does not use combustion and can convert the organics (plastic) fraction into a marketable syngas. • Scott Newell III of The Shredder Co., Canutillo, Texas, provided an overview of how hammermill shredders can be used to process electronic scrap. The system described by Newell focuses on scrap metals recovery by using eddy current separators and other sorting units downstream of the shredder. Electronics Recycling Asia 2013 was Nov. 12-15 at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore.
Keith Freegard says larger facilities need to be built with flexibility in mind.
Keith Freegard, director of the U.K.-based resource recovery firm Axion Consulting, discussed steps that companies can take to ensure that newly built materials recycling facilities (MRFs) can meet the needs of future market opportunities during the recent Paper Recycling Conference & Trade show, held in Warsaw in late October. Freegard noted that incorporating "future-proof" design concepts into the layout and operating principles of new MRFs is vital if managers are to improve the quality and maximize profits from their investments. Concepts such as planning for expansion, predicting likely changes in feed composition and installing good management information systems are other essential elements for ensuring a MRF can meet future waste management and processing challenges, he added. With most paper collected via curbside commingled systems, there’s much greater pressure on primary sorting MRF operators to keep other waste materials, such as plastics, out of their paper streams to ensure high quality output and value for the processing mills, Freegard said. “There’s a great need in this industry to do a more consistent, higher quality job of the in-feed sortation as any contaminants can create problems in the pulping process.” His presentation focused on how the design, precise knowledge of in-feed materials and getting the right skills mix can help MRF operators extract the most from their process plants and be ready to meet future waste management challenges. “Efficient design takes account of the specification and mix of waste materials changing over time. Building in expansion space for additional units in the future, such as longer conveyors with enough room to add extra sorting systems, means you don’t have to completely change your plant layout, which incurs more cost and expensive downtime,” he explained. “In-depth knowledge and analysis of in-feed materials will aid plant design and layout, and help to plan for and cope with future challenges, such as increased complexity of waste products and more material types being collected for sorting,” Freegard continued. “Good management systems are vital in MRFs; if you have a multi-million pound investment and complex sorting process it’s no good asking personnel who used to run the landfill site to operate it. You really have to train them in proper ways of monitoring, managing and controlling plant. We are now in a ‘new era’ where qualified process engineers need to be designing and operating technically-advanced materials resource recovery plants, not just ‘handling waste’.” Highlighting possible solutions and future markets, from developments in sensor-based sorting to consumers’ greener attitudes, he concluded: “Big process plants must be designed for flexibility and need proper management. New technological developments should be welcomed—you will need them one day.”
Mounted material handler allows one employee to both handle material and operate a scrap shear.
The family-owned enterprise, Bandinelli SpA, in Lombardy, Italy, has added a mounted Sennebogen 860 Electro material handling machine at one of its two sites to feed its scrap metal shear. This equipment solution was implemented in collaboration with Sennebogen’s sales and service partner Cesaro Mac, headquartered in the province of Venice. Bandinelli SpA specializes in the recycling of scrap and old vehicles and has used a Sennebogen 860 to charge the 2000 tonne scrap metal shears since 2012. Equipped with a 250 kilowatt electric motor, the machine is designed to offer energy efficiency and to work without emissions or the need to refuel. Power is supplied directly via the special gantry construction. With a reach of 21 meters, the 860 also services the sorting and loading stations, in addition to the scrap metal shears. An additional Sennebogen 835 M is used as a mobile machine. For the new installation, the company wanted to bring together the control units of the materials handling machine and the operation of the scrap metal shears. Sennebogen reports that with this installation, both can be operated and monitored by one person. The Sennebogen 860 was mounted on a rigid four-point gantry undercarriage at a height of 8 meters. Thus the materials handling machine sits directly above the shear cylinder where it offers an unobstructed view of the Danieli-Henschel scrap metal shears as well as an ideal overview and freedom of movement all around the system, Sennebogen says. The handler features the company’s PortCab designed to offer a spacious cab for the driver and a free view of the shears and work area. Equipped with bullet-proved windows and the perimeter railing, the 860 is also built to meet rigorous safety requirements. The overall control of the system takes place in the cab, and the control system can be operated autonomously by one person, Sennebogen says, facilitating an efficient work process.
As the e-scrap stream has grown and changed, both laws and certification systems are attempting to keep up.
Increased attention and resources have been put into recycling e-scrap globally, but keeping up with changes remains an ongoing challenge, according to two keynote speakers at the Electronics Recycling Asia event, held in mid-November 2013 in Singapore. “We’d like to achieve a closed loop—it’s our aspirational goal,” said Jean Cox-Kearns (pictured at right), the Ireland-based Director of Compliance for Dell Global Takeback, part of computer maker Dell Inc., Round Rock, Texas. “We’re using post-consumer plastics in our new products,” said Cox-Kearns, pointing to a success story. She also noted, though, that trying to take back only Dell scrap has been “difficult.” Cox-Kearns said Dell is pleased with emerging e-scrap recycling standards such as R2 and e-Stewards, although the company continues to follow its own internal standards system. “Hopefully at some point, one of these standards will meet our standard and we can just switch,” she commented. Cox-Kearns also expressed opposition to a broadly-written export ban on pre-owned or pre-leased electronics. “It doesn’t have a good impact from an economic perspective [as] it takes away people’s access to technology” in the developing world, she remarked. “People need affordable access to technology.” Clare Lindsay, a board member of certification body R2 Solutions, McLean, Va., said certification systems play a valuable role in helping to ensure that obsolete electronics are “properly managed” once they are collected. She also expressed opposition to strict export bans for used computers and electronics, saying such laws created a “false distinction between OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] and non-OECD countries.” Lindsay commented, however, that much of the non-OECD recycling activity “needs to shift from the non-formal recycling sector, and standards [applied overseas] are how to do that.” In all parts of the world, added Lindsay, policies and investment activity should place “greater value on resource management rather than waste management. It’s about helping to encourage international investment and sharing best practices between the developed world and the developing world.” Electronics Recycling Asia 2013 was Nov. 12-15 at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore.