Highly evolvable e-waste recycling technologies and systems

Abstract

Materials recycling is a key process to close the loop of materials in the direction of circular economy. However, the variability of waste and the high volatility of the price of recovered materials are posing serious challenges to the current rigid design of mechanical recycling systems. This is particularly true for Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), whose volume is growing more than other waste streams in Europe due to the diffusion of electronic products and to their short technology cycles. This study is aimed at the development of new flexible recycling systems through the implementation of a Hyper Spectral Imaging system and a simulation model enabling the real-time characterisation of shredded particles and the dynamic optimisation of process parameters for efficient sorting. A hardware and software prototype was realised and tested at theDe- and Re-manufacturing pilot plant of CNR-STIIMA. The positive economic impact of flexible recycling systems enabled by new technologies was assessed through scenario analysis.