The Investigation of Separability of Particles Smaller Than 5mm by Eddy-Current Separation Technology – Part II: Novel Design Concepts (original) (raw)
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Eddy Current Separation of Fine Non-Ferrous Particles from Bulk Streams
Physical Separation in Science and Engineering, 2004
Recovery of fine non-ferrous metals from waste streams is a notoriously difficult problem in eddy current separation technology. Existing processes either have a low capacity or an incomplete recovery for particle sizes below 5 mm. In a new process, the particles are fed slightly wet to make them stick to the surface of the conveyor belt. The action of the magnet rotor makes the non-ferrous particles tumble, so that they break loose from the belt and end up in front of the rotor. The new process combines a relatively high capacity with an almost complete recovery, even for heavy and poorly conducting non-ferrous metals.
The use of electrical and electronic equipment increases consistently. Printed circuit boards, incorporated in most electrical and electronic equipment, contain valuable metals such as Cu, Ni, Au, Ag, Pd, Fe, Sn and Pb, etc. The circuit boards are rich in metal content and the need for processing these wastes to extract the metals values and remove the non-metallic constituents has been felt all over the world. Eddy current separators (ECS) are increasingly used in waste processing industries. A deeper understanding of the influences of a large number of parameters involved in Eddy Current Separator system is of great help in optimizing the performance of an Eddy Current separator. The present study summarizes the effect of operating variables of crushed PCB waste using ECS. Detailed experimentation has been performed with crushed printed circuit boards according to a Box-Behnken design of experiments to establish the influence of operating variables on the separation performance. T...