Aplicação da separação eletrostática na reciclagem de resíduos poliméricos e baterias de íon de lítio

Abstract

The increasing industrial development results in a large consumption of products and materials. Among them, stand out the polymeric materials, due to their versatility and low cost, and electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), such as mobile phones and their batteries. In this scenario, an efficient and environmentally friendly recycling technology has a great importance. Therefore, this study presents an alternative to the mechanical recycling of these wastes. The separation of the polymeric mixtures was performed using the triboelectrostatic separation process. The components of lithium-ion batteries were recovered by a corona electrostatic separation process. In polymeric waste processing, the methodology employed was the characterization, washing, drying, comminution, secondary washing, secondary drying, tribocharging and electrostatic separation of the different polymeric blends (HDPE / PP, LDPE / PP and PET / PVC). The variables studied were the tribocharging mechanism, the relative humidity, the tribocharging residence time, the angle of the deflector, the distance of the static electrode, the electrode voltage and the rotation of the roll. In lithium ion batteries waste processing, the methodology employed was the characterization, comminution, drying, particle size separation and electrostatic separation. The selected parameters were the electrodes voltage, cylinder rotation, the distance of the static electrode and the angle of the deflector of the collector. For the polymeric waste processing the best results were: low relative humidity, tribocharging residence time of 5 minutes, angle of the deflector of 2.5 °, the distance of the static electrode of 3 cm, voltage of 30 kV and speed rotation 10 rpm. With these parameters, was obtained the recovery of 92.8% of PP (purity of 95.7%) and 95.9% of HDPE (purity of 93.1%). In the separation of PP and LDPE, was obtained a PP recovery of 90.2% (purity 93.8%) and a LDPE recovery of 94.2% (purity of 90.8%). Also, was achieved a recovery of 96.8% of PET (purity of 95.9%), and recovery of 95.9% for PVC (purity of 96.8%). For lithium ion batteries waste processing the best conditions were: rotation speed of 20 rpm, voltage of 25 kV, distance of the static electrode 6 cm and angle of the deflector 0 °. Through this process, was obtained a conductive fraction with 98.98% of metals content and a nonconductive fraction with 99.6% of polymer. The characterization of the batteries showed the batteries heterogeneity, being the electrostatic separation efficient to the different models tested. Therefore, the application of electrostatic separation is a promising method and efficient to recycling of polymer waste and lithium ion batteries waste. The studied process enabled a significant recovery of the components with a high purity.