Advances in Production Engineering & Management
Volume 8 | Number 2 | June 2013 | pp 67–77
http://dx.doi.org/10.14743/apem2013.2.154
Recycling of flame retardant plastics from WEEE, technical and environmental challenges
Tange, L.; Van Houwelingen, J.A.; Peeters, J.R.; Vanegas, P.
ABSTRACT AND REFERENCES (PDF) |
FULL ARTICLE TEXT (PDF)
A B S T R A C T
The European Flame Retardant Association (EFRA) combines leading companies
offering the largest spectrum of flame retardants (FRs). EFRA conducted
many studies on the recycling of FRplastics. This study concerns the recycling
of plastics from liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and addresses the RoHS and
WEEE directives (Restriction on Hazardous Substances and Waste Electrical
and Electronic Equipment), requiring a higher tonnage of recycled plastics.
Recycling standards are developed within the committee IEC TC111. A new
technical report IEC/TR 62635 Ed1.0: “Guidelines for End-of-Life information
provision from manufacturers and recyclers, and for recyclability rate calculation
of Electrical and Electronic Equipment”, aims for better and higher quality
of recycled materials. EFRA cooperated with REWARD, a project in the ECOINNOVATION
program of FP7, with partners Recycling Consult, Coolrec/PHB
and BRGM. Due to higher external fire safety requirements for TV housings in
Europe, more FR-plastics need to be recycled following the recast of the WEEE
directive. As a consequence WEEE plastics need to be processed by mechanical
recycling instead of energy recovery. The EFRA and REWARD study describe
composition, characterization, identification, size reduction and separation
techniques. This article provides guidance to achieve the required plastic qualities
and its limitations due to separation constraints and miscibility problems
of the different plastics. A separation route on paper is developed for plastics
from back covers of LCDs. It is found that a combination of mild size reduction,
density separation and sensor based sorting gives the best results. Fractions are
tested for their miscibility with virgin plastics by producers. The findings are of
importance since presently solutions for FR-plastic separation are hardly offered.
A R T I C L E I N F O
Keywords • Flame retardant plastics, Size reduction, Separation, WEEE, Sensor based sorting
Corresponding author • Tange, L.
Published on-line • 29 June 2013
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