Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPTResearch project "MetalSens"
Process chain for low-dust and sensor-supported recovery of technology metals
Scarcity of resources requires innovations in the recycling of technology metals
Growing demand for raw materials, rising prices and also the legal requirements for handling electronic waste are forcing companies to recycle more and more. The secured supply of technology metals such as rare earths is endangered in the future due to limited raw material resources. An economic process chain for the recovery of technology metals from electronic scrap does not yet exist.
Development of a technically innovative recycling process chain
"MetalSens" was dedicated to the low-dust and sensor-based recovery of technology metals from electronic scrap. For this purpose, the process parameters for low-dust fragmentation were optimized by means of the statistical test method Design-of-Experiments. The application of a process-structure-matrix ensured a continuous requirements management. The ecological and economic evaluation of the resulting process chain served to derive optimization potentials.
The process chain of the research project "MetalSens" takes into account individual, cross-process requirements for the dismantling of electronic scrap, the sorting of the technology metals and the metallurgical recycling. A full factorial test planning for the denaturing of the printed circuit boards allows an optimal process performance, which is documented with economic and ecological key figures.
Project Consortium
- Aurubis AG
- ELECTROCYCLING GmbH
- IME - Metallurgische Prozesstechnik und Metallrecycling
- LLA Instruments GmbH
- SICON Germany
- Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT
Project Management Organization
- Project Management Jülich | Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
- Research for Sustainable Development (FONA)