A study on the shredding of end-of-life vehicles and materials separation

Abstract

The treatment of end-of-life vehicle(ELV) has been studied for the recycling of materials including automobile shredder residue(ASR). ELV was shredded and separated in practical plant which had shredders with cyclones, screens, magnetic separators and eddy current separators, etc. Constituent materials of ELV were analyzed from the shredded products. For this aim, three old cars made by domestic automobile manufacturers, i.e. Sonata II, Sephia and Prince were chosen and delivered in pressed form without engine, tires, and doors, etc. From the separation of shredder products, iron scrap was observed to be the major material of ELV accounting for 60.1% of total weight and nonferrous metals involving Al, Cu, Zn, etc. were about 2%. Light fluff, about 90% of total fluff product was comprised with plastic, fiber, sponge, etc., and the fraction of 5cm undersize in light fluff reached about 70.5%. However, heavy fluff mainly contained plastic and rubber. Among the constituent materials of fluff and plastic showed the highest calorific value more than 10,000 kcal/kg and leather and rubber showed relatively high chlorine content with 10.3 and 2.55 wt.%, respectively. In addition, electric wires and plastics in ASR could be efficiently separated by employing the air separation technology. ？ 2003 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.