Cost benefit analysis of end of life vehicle origin scrap sorting

Abstract

Various alloying elements are used in vehicle manufacture to reduce environmental impacts and advance technology. After being used in human economic activities, end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) return to the steel industry as scrap containing rare metals and are subjected to the electric arc furnace process. However, at present, these steel scraps are recovered with insufficient concern for alloying elements mainly because of economic reasons. The objective of this study is to analyze the cost and benefit of scrap sorting system with explicitly considering alloying elements. Sorting of six parts, drive shaft, rear axle, disk rotor, rear exhaust piece, catalyst unit, and exhaust pipe, are analyzed from the sorting cost and benefit of deduction of ferroalloy input for EAF steel making process. Our results indicate that the sorting of exhaust pipe and catalyst unit deduce 711 ton and 1280 ton of ferrochromium in maximum, and 7.2 ton and 26.4 ton of ferronickel, and the sorting of rear exhaust piece is a feasible option from the cost and benefit perspective, while this amount is 0.1 kg per unit.