Mitchell Goldberg of Philadelphia-based Northeast Metal Traders (NEMT) knew that when buying wire chopping equipment he needed a system that could meet targeted output levels while also creating high-purity chops. Research into the sector he and his colleagues conducted more than five years ago led him into a long-lasting relationship with Eldan Recycling.

Goldberg says that he, along with two colleagues with extensive wire chopping experience, “were able to see a number of existing installations of Eldan equipment and other manufacturers” as they conducted their research. “This experience, along with our previous exposure to other operations, confirmed our selection of Eldan as our vendor of choice.”

Carsten Nielsen, North American sales manager at Denmark-based Eldan, says his firm worked with NEMT to install a system configured to fit space in the company’s existing facility in Philadelphia. An Eldan E2500C was the centerpiece of the system, installed in 2013, and it soon began to exceed its rated output levels and the expectations of its new owners.

“We were able to quickly achieve and then exceed our production goals,” says Goldberg. Nielsen says NEMT’s operators were eventually able to churn out up to 3,000 kilograms (6,600 pounds) of chops per hour with the E2500C—named that way because it is rated for 2,500 kg (5,500 pounds) per hour.

“Eldan expertly advised us in the layout and installation process,” says Goldberg. “They provided talented installation personnel who worked in conjunction with our crew to put the line together quickly.” NEMT has subsequently installed an electrostatic separator to further purify outbound chops. Nielsen says the combined systems are working 20 hours per day.

Jeff Fisher of NEMT also credits the company’s customer base with providing it material ready-made for efficient wire and cable processing. “We are able to make very high purity chops largely because we purchase wire from suppliers known for their quality and because we have very reliable pre-processing sortation techniques,” he comments. “We are fortunate to do business with a network of customers who are knowledgeable about sorting and packaging insulated wire, and who care about quality.”

Goldberg is clear regarding his assessment of his five-year relationship with Eldan. “We treasure our relationship with Eldan. They constantly expose us to new technology and work with us to improve our process with their expertise. For all the reasons above and more, we highly recommend the Eldan team.”

Recovering fines and ultra-fines from ASR is becoming standard practice for processors seeking to get maximum return from their material.

The challenge, however, has been reclaiming and cleaning these fines to create marketable metal.

General Kinematics has brought a proven processing methodology capable of delivering consistent, reliable, industrial-scale production to the industry.

It’s not a “black-box” whose methodology is unclear. Rather, it’s an engineered industrial solution that’s been used in other processes for decades!

The GK VIBRA-DRUM^® Grinding Mill

General Kinematics VIBRA-DRUM^® Grinding Mills have been used in a range of applications in the mining and mineral industries. Over several decades of operation, they have proven consistently reliable, offering continual performance and low operating costs.

The mill is used to recover fines and ultra-fines post-Eddy Current and Metal Finder treatment. This material is comingled with glass and stone and its size prevents reclamation using other technologies.

To learn more about the process, or to send your material in for testing to recover your metal fines, contact the experts at GK.

Read the full case study here: ASR Fines Processing.

Many scrap recycling companies handle electrical or electronic components, directly or indirectly, including those that process computer and electronic equipment and household and industrial goods and those that process manufacturing scrap.

Recycled components can contain a range of metals with significant intrinsic value, but these metals may represent only a fraction of the components’ contents. Gold and other precious metals (PMs) often are surrounded by plastics or other materials, making sustainable recovery challenging.

The dynamics of the recycling market are changing with advances in environmentally sound recycling of e-scrap and greater involvement of global manufacturers in sustainability.

The e-scrap opportunity

E-scrap recyclers perform a valuable function in reducing the ratio of plastics and other materials in the PMs stream when they disassemble old computers and other nonworking equipment, removing drivers and power supplies from chassis and separating integrated circuits (ICs) and other components from circuit boards, for example. This can greatly improve the efficiency of thermal recycling operations.

As the U.S. moves to more hybrid and electric vehicles, automakers and suppliers, who already are interested in sustainability, could further stimulate the greening of end-of-product-life recycling. On conventional vehicles, spent catalytic converters, which depend on precious metal catalysts, already are targeted heavily for recycling, as are lithium-ion batteries and circuitry on electric vehicles.

E-scrap is a major opportunity, and components with a higher ratio of high-value metals produce the best returns. High-density circuit boards always are worth more than simpler circuits. According to a report by Market Research Engine, Deerfield Beach, Florida, the value of e-scrap generated globally is projected to grow at about 23 percent per year, reaching more than $76 billion by 2022.

Manufacturers of mobile devices already offer direct recycling-exchange programs for customers, and manufacturers of other, especially smaller, consumer or household products could follow suit. Still, most e-scrap starts out mixed with other materials, so e-scrap value depends, in large part, on disassembly labor, material separation and downstream efficiency.

Upstream, many manufacturers already recycle scrap from production processes, especially residual materials containing valuable metals. High volumes of concentrated e-scrap containing PMs also are generated whenever aftermarket components, such as circuit boards or military replacement parts, exceed their rated shelf life and must undergo certified destruction. They also are generated in mass recalls of electronic products. Samsung, for example, heralded its responsible recycling policies for its recalled Galaxy Note 7 smartphones in March 2017 after recalling 1.9 million of the devices in 2016.

Globally, e-scrap generation has been growing by more than 40 million tons per year for some time, according to a report from Market Research Engine, and the advent of more environmentally responsible methods that maximize recovery of PMs can create new opportunities for e-scrap disassembly operations and those that want to focus on more energy-efficient, “greener” recycling.

Getting the best return

E-scrap is a dynamic and ever-changing stream of material and is best managed when recyclers and reclaimers work closely together to establish the most accurate, cost-efficient and safe methods to recover the valuable materials contained.

Generally, e-scrap recyclers will want to consider two main factors: economic and environmental, health and safety (EHS).

On the economic front, factors include the volume, types and grades the recycler handles as well as available resources to manage material. Segregation by grade is helpful because it provides for better tracking of yields produced by reclaimers. It also allows recyclers to supply the appropriate grade of material best suited to the processing capabilities of a reclaimer. Yet, while most industry professionals agree that 100 percent reclaim preparation (automated or manual separation) provides the most accurate results, the trade-off is that it is more costly. So where is the tipping point?

For most materials, the guideline is that e-scrap products with a gross combined PMs and copper value of at least $8 to $10 per pound are ideally suited for full reclaim processing. Materials with lower commodity values will be more cost-efficiently managed by shredding and sampling or outright sale. Additionally, any extraneous material that can be removed upfront will produce two reclaim benefits: removal of heavy parts (such as steel shielding, aluminum heat sinks and transformers), wire, bulk plastics and packaging will reduce overall reclaim costs, and some of these materials can be recycled and traded as separate commodities.

Regarding EHS, this is always a central focus for reclaimers. Protection of employees, the environment and process equipment is extremely important and especially challenging in highly regulated, heavy-industrial environments that incorporate foundry, thermal reduction, chemical and mechanical processes. Reclaimers generally will ask many questions about the e-scraps’ constituent materials and may request samples to evaluate further before accepting this material. Deleterious elements, such as beryllium, cadmium, mercury and others, are problematic for employee and environmental exposures.

The reclaimer also will evaluate how the material will impact EHS. For example, batteries and other sealed devices will pose a risk of explosion and toxic release in a thermal or shredding process. Those types of devices need to be removed and recycled or disposed of responsibly. The more information the recycler can provide and address upfront the better.

What’s at stake

Local availability of advanced thermal reduction services reduces the cost of recovering PMs while also helping to safeguard the environment. In contrast, shipping volumes of e-scrap halfway around the world for recycling is energy intensive, and the process can be laden with uncertainty. In developing countries and remote regions, e-scrap recyclers may operate with primitive methods and little government oversight. Without singling out any manufacturers, CBS News chronicled the practice of open burning of e-scrap in China on “60 Minutes,” available at www.cbsnews.com/news/following-the-trail-of-toxic-e-waste. Small-time operators cook printed circuit boards over open fires outdoors, and chemicals from extraction baths pollute the ground and water supply.

Uncontrolled combustion of e-scrap potentially can vaporize large quantities of semivolatile toxic compounds and produce halogenated organic pollutants, including dioxins and furans.

A laboratory study conducted by the University of Cincinnati and co-authored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that combustion produced a mixture of aromatic and aromatic amine organic compounds of C6-C16. Combustion of PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate, also known as acrylic or acrylic glass) cellphone casings and other plastic from e-scrap were examined separately.

Although most plastics begin to melt at relatively low temperatures, combustion produces low-levels of acids, which should be captured and neutralized. In addition, thorough combustion is required to reduce or eliminate byproducts, such as benzene compounds. Yet at the same time, combustion processes must be controlled to avoid the high-temperature formation of toxic byproducts.

Most thermal recycling operations have been in place for years and rely on tray furnaces, and some may use afterburners as secondary treatment of combustion byproducts before discharge to the atmosphere. Operators often are reluctant to upgrade to cleaner or more efficient furnaces, which are subject to newer, more stringent environmental regulations.

More responsible recycling

Gannon & Scott, however, continues to develop environmentally responsible thermal reduction processes. Throughout the past 98 years, the company has designed and built or upgraded more than a half dozen high-capacity thermal reduction units that operate with advanced process and pollution controls.

We recently commissioned a three-stage thermal reduction unit at our Cranston, Rhode Island, facility. The TRu3Tec thermal reduction system is designed to operate at relatively low temperatures (about 1,400 to 1,500 F) to dramatically reduce the formation of hazardous byproducts. Plus, it features environmental and process controls to further reduce waste emissions. It is an enhancement of a similar system designed by Gannon & Scott for our metals recovery facility in Phoenix.

Pollution controls for the system include quenching, cyclonic separation, wet scrubbing of exhaust gases and dust collection. Both plants also are zero-discharge facilities for processing wastewater sludge and plating solutions.

For mixed products, such as circuit boards, that arrive at our facilities, any carbon-bearing organic compounds, plastics and combustibles, such as filters, will be destroyed in the thermal reduction process. Virtually no air emissions are produced because the system captures and treats combustion byproducts. Water-based scrubber solutions condition primary combustion byproducts so we do not discharge any harmful dioxins or furans to the atmosphere. We neutralize acids as a secondary part of the process. Our process evaporates water and treats residues internally so no hazardous waste is generated.

Most PMs recovery operations talk about zero waste as a goal. We are about as close to that goal as possible. Scrap metals from our burnt circuit boards are sent to metal recyclers. Even packaging materials and pallets are recycled. Almost the only waste that leaves our plant is from our cafeteria and a small amount of office waste.

Currently, about 70 percent to 80 percent of the residuals processed at our facilities come from manufacturers, primarily from electronics, automotive/aerospace, jewelry, minting and metal plating operations. The bulk of the remainder comes from end-of-life product recyclers, particularly e-scrap recyclers, and we expect this segment to grow with the economy and as the recycling industry expands and matures. The system also is used for certified destruction of obsolete electronic components.

Our goal is to deliver certifiable, tangible value for our customers, and intangible value with our environmentally responsible approach.

This is increasingly important to Fortune 500 companies, multinational corporations and others with sustainability policies. Our process not only minimizes wastes and emissions, but we also can economically recover value even from material containing only a small fraction of residual PMs.

Volume is key to value, especially at lower PMs percentages. We maximize recovery of residual PMs value from wipes, gloves, spent jars of conductive pastes; cathodes and ion exchange resins used in plating operations; and even floor sweepings from manufacturers. Even difficult-to-handle silicone rubber with PMs can be processed. We help suppliers recover value from fabric waste impregnated with low levels of silver, cloth that would otherwise go to a landfill. In this case, we turn what would be a hazardous waste into a return for the customer.

Such opportunities abound, and we believe new ones will emerge in the end-of-life e-recycling space. Enterprising recyclers can play an important role in identifying these opportunities and in creating win-win-win value for themselves, their customers and the environment.

Andrew McManus is general manager of Gannon & Scott. He has more than three decades of experience in engineering and recycling operations and precious metals recycling. Chris Jones, president of Gannon & Scott, has served the company in management roles for more than 25 years. He is a director and past chairman of the International Precious Metals Institute. More information is available at www.gannon-scott.com.

If you don’t know how neodymium, dysprosium and praseodymium are used, you have two choices: Retake high school chemistry or read the sidebar “Common applications for rare-earth metals” before continuing to read this article.

Pretty soon, each of these minor metals could affect your recycling operations, especially if you deal with electronics.

These metals with the tongue-twisting names are rare-earth elements. And they might be worth a lot of money to recyclers who recover them.

The price of neodymium has fluctuated on world markets largely because of changes in Chinese production. In mid-2011, it sold for about $500 per kilogram; but, by the end of that year, the price had fallen to less than $350 per kilogram, or 35 cents per gram ($9.92 per ounce). Pricing has continued to slide, fetching less than 4 cents per gram ($1.13 per ounce) as of late November 2017.

China plays a huge role in rare-earth elements—one that is forcing users of these metals to look for recycled sources. For instance, China produces more than 90 percent of the world’s neodymium.

High-tech companies’ interest in finding secondary sources of neodymium indicates it is worth a recycler’s time to consider whether to get involved in recovering rare-earth elements.

Hidden potential

Rare-earth metals are found in cellphones, magnets, including those used in computer hard drives and alternative-fuel vehicles, and displays. If recovering these metals requires minimal investment in space or dollars, it could be worthwhile.

Preston Bryant, CEO of Momentum Technologies, Dallas, definitely says it is. “This is a new way to think about recovering electronics,” he says.

His company, working together with the Materials Science and Technology Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, developed a way to recover 97 percent of the rare-earth materials from the magnets found in hard drives and cellphones.

After electronics recyclers remove the precious metals and plastics from the material stream, these companies then can turn to Momentum Technologies or a similar outfit to recover rare-earth metals.

Demand for these materials is huge. The electric motor in a Toyota Prius uses about 1 kilogram of neodymium in its permanent magnets. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) says a wind turbine rated at 3.5 megawatts of electricity contains 600 kilograms, or 1,300 pounds, of rare-earth metals.

The technology developed at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) ORNL uses a combination of hollow fiber membranes, organic solvents and neutral extractants to recover rare-earth elements.

In laboratory testing, the membrane extraction system demonstrated the potential to recover more than 90 percent of these three elements in a highly pure form from scrap neodymium-based magnets. Bryant puts the figure closer to 97 percent. The resulting product is a 99.6 percent pure combination of rare-earth materials, he adds.

Keep in mind that the typical magnet—just the magnet—in a hard drive consists of 30 percent to 33 percent rare-earth elements, Momentum Technologies says. As mentioned previously, manufacturers of cellphones and electric cars are heavy users of these metals and likely would be happy to eliminate, or at least minimize, Chinese mines from their supply chains.

Although iron and boron must be removed from the rare-earth elements during recovery, most end users are satisfied with a rare-earth metal product that includes a mixture of neodymium, dysprosium and praseodymium, which is what the system developed by ORNL produces.

“We are providing raw material that can be used across the board,” Bryant says.

Currently, 35 percent of used hard drives are shredded in the United States because of data security concerns, according to the DOE. Recycling those drives could result in recovery of about 1,000 metric tons of magnet material per year, according to Timothy McIntyre, project lead and program manager in ORNL’s Electrical and Electronics Systems Research Division.

Exceeding limitations

Membrane extraction is an efficient process compared with mining. To reclaim 1 kilogram of rare-earth metals requires about 3 kilograms of magnets. “You are getting high density,” Bryant says. “You don’t have to deal with a huge amount of material as you do with mining.”

He is referring to the earth-moving sort of mining. Urban Mining, Jacksonville, Florida, does a different kind of mining. The company provides secure destruction of electronic media and recovery of recyclables. Urban Mining also has rare-earth metals in its sights.

“We believe it is economically viable and environmentally sustainable,” Steven Kaufman, CEO of Urban Mining, says of recovering these materials for recycling.

The company is working on establishing a public-private partnership with the University of Florida to research recovery technology Urban Mining has developed.

Urban Mining focuses on electronic refurbishing and recycling. Kaufman confirms the company has funded the research and is hopeful for a positive outcome. He says he expects that, once the technology is commercialized, it will become part of Urban Mining’s offering and may be licensed to other companies down the road.

Recycling critical materials from electronic scrap has been limited by processing technologies that are inefficient, costly and environmentally hazardous, says ORNL’s Ramesh Bhave, who led the membrane solvent extraction research and development. He says the team’s new simplified process eliminates many of these barriers.

“Our single-step process to recover rare-earth elements from scrap magnets is more environmentally friendly and has the potential to be a more cost-effective approach compared to conventional routes, such as precipitation,” Bhave says.

Recycling rare-earth metals is attractive for technical, financial and political reasons. In late 2010, China cut off exports of rare-earth metals to Japan in response to Japan’s detention of a Chinese fishing trawler captain. The DOE established its Critical Materials Strategy in 2010 and its Critical Materials Institute (CMI) in 2013. CMI focuses on technologies that make better use of materials and eliminate the need for materials that are subject to supply disruptions.

Momentum received two nonexclusive licensing agreements for recovery technologies the CMI developed in partnership with ORNL and Idaho National Laboratory.

The company first licensed ORNL’s membrane extraction technology, which uses a combination of hollow fiber membranes, organic solvents and neutral extractants to selectively recover rare-earth elements, such as neodymium, dysprosium and praseodymium.

The second license is for ORNL’s automated process to recover magnets from hard drives. It employs a system to sort and align hard drives on a conveyor for processing. The method uses a mapping station with barcode scanning and a coordinate measuring machine to populate a database of each make of hard drive, positioning the devices for correct robotic disassembly.

The process is designed to recover the magnets, their permalloy brackets, circuit boards, aluminum and steel, CMI says, while automatically destroying data storage media to ensure security.

The recovered magnets can be directly reused by hard drive manufacturers or in motor assemblies, used in other applications through resizing or reshaping or processed back to rare-earth metal. This recovery method also can be adapted to target other consumer goods containing rare-earth magnets, such as used electric motors, appliances and heating and air conditioning systems, ORNL says.

In a news release announcing that Momentum obtained this second license, Bryant says, “Bringing together these CMI technologies allows us to create a sustainable business model, something that many rare-earth companies struggle to achieve.”

In that same news release, CMI Director Alex King says, “Hard disk drives are the second-biggest use of neodymium magnets, and they are the most readily available source for recycling.”

Hurdles yet to overcome

Magnets use a considerable amount of rare-earth elements. In August 2016, CMI created a table of more than 460 U.S. patents, available at http://cmi.ameslab.gov/sites/default/files/rare-earth-magnet- patents-august-29-2016.pdf, that address rare-earth magnet compositions.

Rare-earth metals are among the most difficult elements to process and the hardest to do without, CMI researchers say. They rank at the top of all lists of critical materials today, and the difficulty of working with them, or working around them, contributes significantly to this. CMI says it is addressing three major technical challenges associated with rare-earth metals recycling: recovery, separation of one rare-earth metal from another and converting the ore to metal.

From a recycler’s point of view, the biggest hurdle to recovery is purification. But technology companies are happy to get blended materials, as long as that blend meets their manufacturing requirements.

Bryant says Momentum Technologies has processed these materials at scale, sending the resulting product to 10 manufacturers for evaluation. “They said our product is something they can use,” he says.

The company was relieved to find that manufacturers are willing to take a combination of all three rare earths if it is in a highly pure state, Bryant adds. Separating these elements from each other is costly and time-consuming.

Developing new chemical separation methods that offer high efficiency, low cost and low environmental impact will allow the materials to be processed more widely.

Nobody sees demand for rare earths going away, nor do domestic observers expect China to suddenly ease up on its hold on the market. That leaves recovery as a potent future supply source of rare earths.

“Those that are aware of the issue recognize that it is an issue and that it will grow over time,” Kaufman states.

The author is a freelance writer based in the Cleveland area and can be contacted at curt@curtharler.com