Beneficiation of metals and energy in shredder residue fines

Purpose and goal

Although magnetic fines from shredder plants contain high contents of valuable metals and energy-rich components, the material is currently landfilled. The reason for this is mainly due to the materials inhomogeneous character that makes conventional mineral processing methods ineffective. This pre-study has resulted in the identification of one process route with potential to recycle metals and energy being more favorable than landfilling with regard to environmental- and economic effects.

Results and expected effects

The obtained results are in well agreement with the preset aim of this pre-study as these have indicated potential to reach high recycling grades of valuable metals and energy in magnetic fines. The studied process route for upgrading fines can be used as a basis for a future full-scale project in where the potential of an industrial implementation can be further evaluated. The expected future effects are reduced amount of magnetic fines ending in landfills and savings of energy/resource used for production of primary materials.

Approach and implementation

Upgrading of SLF has been investigated by pre-treatment in a tornado process followed by separation through physical separation methods. Due to the project size, upgrading of SLF has been studied for a limited number of trials and amount of material. The project set-up has therefore been adapted to only provide indicative results regarding if the studied process route can result in profitable recycling of the material. Thus, the results from this pre-study can be used as a basis for future full-scale projects to verify and optimize results by more extensive trials.