WEEE Recycling – Metal Recycling from Complex Beneficiation Fines

A. Trentmann, F. Brinkmann, B. Friedrich

Because of growing mechanization and decreasing life span of technical equipment, the waste production for WEEE (waste of electrical and electronic equipment) will rise strongly. Different residual fractions are produced during the beneficiation of WEEE. Some of these fractions contain high contents of valuable metals besides a high amount of organics in form of plastic.

This paper focuses on works with a fine fraction of filter dust with interesting amounts of copper, gold and silver. Pellets are made of this dust in combination with other waste streams as well as slag additives to create an autogenic agglomerate with ideal melting properties. First melting trials with adjustment of a combustion process generate a slag, which is good to handle and a metal phase with high amounts of copper. Kinetic investigations provide first results about the behavior of plastics and carbon in context to pellet weight and added slag components.