ABB Helps Swedish Firm Turn Electronic Scrap into Gold

Facility upgrades will nearly triple Boliden’s capacity.


The metals firm Boliden, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, is currently ramping up a new plant adjacent to its existing electronic scrap recycling facility at its Rönnskär, Sweden, copper smelter. When the facility is complete it will close to triple the company’s recycling capacity from 45,000 metric tons to 120,000 metric tons a year, making it the largest electronic scrap recycling facility in the world, according to the company.

The Rönnskär complex smelts and refines metals from mined copper concentrates and recyclables. The pre-sorted and pre-shredded e-scrap is smelted at Rönnskär using Boliden’s Kaldo furnace technology. After smelting, the molten metals are transferred to the adjoining production lines for processing into high-grade products.

In 2010, electronic scrap accounted for 6 percent of Rönnskär’s raw material, with recyclable materials as a whole contributing 24 percent. When the new plant reaches full capacity by the second quarter of 2012, these figures will rise to 14 and 31 percent, respectively.


The company ABB has played a significant role in the Kaldo plant expansion and at the Rönnskär complex as a whole. For the new Kaldo plant, ABB has supplied a comprehensive range of process-critical power and automation technologies, including the process control system.

On the electrical side, the ABB solutions include low- and medium-voltage switchgear to ensure safe and reliable power distribution throughout the plant; low-voltage industrial drives to speed-control the motor applications and reduce energy consumption; and RESIBLOC dry-type distribution transformers, which are explosion-proof and environmentally friendly and can withstand extreme loads and very high levels of mechanical stress and thermal shock, according to the company.

The entire electronic scrap recycling process is controlled by ABB’s 800xA Extended Automation System and includes customized features, such as remote operation of the process and an exact positioning system to prevent spilling of molten metal from the furnace.

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