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Electronics Recycling
Composite Recycling
Recycling Publications
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Recycling Technologies
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Phoenix Recycling
Reactor |
"Jumbo" composite recycling reactor.
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Tertiary recycling is rapidly emerging as an economical method for reclaiming valuable
materials from a variety of polymer-based that would otherwise be landfilled. The term "tertiary recycling" has been adopted from the American Plastics Council; by definition it is the processing of plastics back to valuable chemicals or fuels for reuse. In the "tertiary recycling process", polymeric waste is converted into reusable hydrocarbon fractions for reincarnation as polymers, monomers, fuels, or chemicals, automatically separating the valuable materials (e.g., metals, fiberglass, and ceramics) with little manpower.
The tertiary recycling process is a low-temperature continuous operation catalytic process with support unit operations for size reduction, drying, material classification, offgas treatment and distillation, and metals, fiber, and carbon char recovery. Adherent's process contradicts current recycling techniques in that it combines all components that make up the scrap in question into a single feedstock, removing transportation, labor, and other related segregation costs. The ability of the tertiary recycling process to remove the labor cost improves the economics of recycling these complex mixtures. Valuable components that make up the feedstock are separated by designated unit operations throughout the process (both before and after the tertiary-recycling reactor).
Over the past several years, Adherent Technologies, Inc. and its development partner, Titan Technologies, Inc., have been developing a low-temperature, catalytic conversion process for tertiary recycling of organic materials that do not lend themselves to recycling with conventional technologies. These
"unrecyclable" materials include tires, mixed electronics
scrap, complex mixtures of plastics, cross-linked polymers, and composites. The process has proven to be highly successful in recycling scrap tires. Three 100 ton per day commercial recycling plants utilizing the technology have been conducting profitable operations in the Pacific Rim. The first plant was constructed in 1994. A number of similar tire recycling plants are either under construction or are in the planning phase of work in Western Europe.
The U.S. government has supported Adherent Technologies, Inc. with more than three million dollars in funding for research and development programs intended to enhance the tire recycling technology for application to mixed electronics, automotive shredder residue, consumer plastics, and composite materials scrap recycling. |
