Argonne's Automotive Recycling Processes Win Awards

The automobile shredder industry recovers over 10 million tons of ferrous (iron-containing) scrap annually from obsolete automobiles and sells the metals at a significant profit. After metals recovery, though, the auto recyclers are left with about 5 million tons of nonmetallic auto shredder residue (ASR) to dispose of annually. Argonne's processes to recover valuable plastics from this scrap have won two prestigious awards.

Discover Award Finalist

Argonne's unique "froth flotation" process separates individual high-purity plastics from waste streams containing a mixture of plastics. The technology separates equal-density plastics, such as acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS), high-impact polystyrene (HIPS), and polypropylene (PP), from each other and from other plastics during scrap shredding and metal recovery operations. Argonne's process has been used to recover selected plastics from ASR, disassembled car parts, obsolete appliances, industrial scrap plastics, and consumer electronics.

Froth flotation is highly selective, producing products of greater than 98% purity and typically recovering more than 80% of a targeted material. ABS from shredded automotive scrap, for example, is recovered by modifying the surfaces of the equal-density HIPS and ABS particles. When the particles are placed in a special aqueous mixture, HIPS particles float and separate from the sinking ABS particles.

The economics for recovering and recycling plastics, such as for recovered ABS, are typically very attractive, with a payback of about two years. For example, clean and recycled ABS sells for $0.30 - $0.45 per pound, compared with about $1.00 per pound for virgin material. Reusing reclaimed plastics also reduces the energy consumed by producing new plastics and decreases disposal costs, while helping improve the environment. Recovered polymers are compatible with virgin materials and can be used for such products as computers, office equipment, telephones, and home appliances.

R&D 100 Award

Another Argonne process separates flexible polyurethane foam (FPUF) from ASR and cleans it to produce high-quality foam that can be used to make new products. The FPUF, which makes up more than 30% of the ASR volume, contains impurities such as automotive fluids, iron oxide, glass, and metals. Argonne's efficient, economical process separates and cleans the foam so that it can be recycled. Widespread use of this process would create another value-added product for the shredder recycling industry while reducing landfill waste.