Process Efficiency in the Sorting of Solid Waste Materials

The relation between efforts and benefits determines a main criterion for the economic and technical evaluation of processes.

Optimizing processes in waste treatment facilities therefore requires a sufficient database with regard to the single processing steps applied. Only with this knowledge available the efficiency of processes can be improved. In this context parameters such as mass flow and yield of valuable materials and the increase in purity are most common for mechanical processing of waste materials. Depending on the type of process and specific type of waste these parameters can either depend on concentrations of specific materials or addi-tionally on characteristics such as particle size. This approach and the gathered results are intro-duced for the processing of two different types of waste. One of the main findings within the analysis carried out for the two examples was the fact that the efficiency of processes depends on the parameters of specific process steps or on prior steps that alter the characteristics of the material and thereby the content of valuables in the processed mixture.
The first example focuses on the recovery of plastic materials from mixed residual waste. In this case each step in a processing line was analyzed in order to determine the loss of target ma-terial and establish the overall efficiency. While this could also happen through a simple input and output analysis, the detailed approach offers the chance to evaluate where losses of valuable materials occur in the processing line and determine the theoretical efficiency correction poten-tial for the processing steps applied.
In the second example the impacts of a comminution step on the content of chunky wooden waste from separately collected biowaste has been analyzed. The chunky wooden waste was de-fined by minimum particle size. While an initial comminution is necessary for the processing of the biowaste (e.g. steady material flow), it impacts on particle size and can thereby results in a reduction of material matching the definition of chunky wooden waste. Considering this process efficiency in matter of yield valuable materials can be effected by manipulating the materials characteristics.
The findings from both examples underline the necessity to have a detailed perspective on the different steps in a processing line in order to analyze the efficiencies and determine the poten-tial for improvement.



Copyright: © Lehrstuhl für Abfallverwertungstechnik und Abfallwirtschaft der Montanuniversität Leoben
Quelle: Depotech 2012 (November 2012)
Seiten: 6
Preis: € 3,00
Autor: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Pretz
Dr. Alexander Feil
Dipl.-Ing. Nico Schmalbein
Dipl.-Ing. Nils Bauerschlag
 
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