New licensing agreement will reduce auto shredder waste in Europe

Polyurethane foam from reclaimed automobiles is cleaned at a demonstration auto-shredder facility built by Argonne to prepare the foam for recycling. (Argonne National Laboratory photo)

Argonne National Laboratory and Salyp Recycling Center of Belgium have signed a license agreement for a new process for recovering previously unrecoverable material from scrapped vehicles.

The material, known as auto shredder residue, or ASR, includes a mixture of plastics, fabric, foam, dirt and a variety of other materials. It is generated when the vehicles are shredded to recover the more valuable metal from the scrap.

The process is of particular importance in Europe, where the waste from ELVs – the acronym stands for "end-of-life vehicles" – must be reduced by 40 percent by the year 2005 under European Union directives.

"And there is no technology available yet to recycle ASR, except for the technology developed at Argonne National Laboratory," said Ivan Vanherpe, project manager of Salyp Recycling. "The Argonne technology avoids the scenario of landfilling or burning of ASR."

Vanherpe estimates that each junked vehicle contains about 250 kilograms of auto shredder residue – about 550 pounds. That makes for an annual total in Europe of 3 billion kilograms of material that is currently sent to incinerators or landfills.

With the Argonne-developed technology, the auto shredder residue is separated into three different streams, says scientist Bassam Jody, one of the Argonne engineers who developed the process. Plastic-rich streams, iron oxides, and polyurethane foam can each separately be recycled to other uses.

Tests show that the resulting polyurethane foam meets performance criteria for new-material carpet padding and for reuse in automotive applications, Vanherpe said. The process is fully continuous, minimizing materials handling and labor costs.

Design of a full-scale demonstration plant is underway in Belgium, and Argonne will participate with Salyp in the demonstration to show the technical and economic impacts of the process.

The Salyp ELV Center will become operational in 2000, and is expected to prove that Argonne's recycling technology can be adapted to the European ELV directives without taxpayer support, Vanherpe said.

"To date, many people have just talked about developing a 'recyclable' automobile. This Argonne technology represents the first practical step forward in recovering automobile polyurethane foam rather than throwing it into a landfill," says Paul Betten, the licensing executive for this technology. "Further, Argonne has developed other separations technology that will aid in recovering other high value plastics from the automobile waste stream that will make recycling an even more profitable business."

"In Europe" he added, "the environmental concerns and recovery economics are more pronounced than in the U.S., due to a scarcity of land and environmental legislation, and Salyp Recycling has shown great foresight in being able to provide technology that will greatly benefit the European Community."

Working with Argonne

Argonne has many types of contractual agreements to meet the needs and interests of industry, state and local governments, federal agencies and other organizations.

For More Information

• Argonne's Auto Shredder Recycling Process

For more information, contact Argonne's Office of Technology Transfer (800-627-2596, partners@anl.gov).