Battery scrap

After acid removal, scrap batteries are fed to a hammer mill in which they are ground to <5 cm particles. The ground components are fed to a conveyor and passed by a magnet to remove undesirable contamination. The lead scrap is then classified on a wet screen through which fine particles of lead sulfate and lead oxide pass, and the large oversize soHd particles are passed on to a hydrodynamic separator. The fine particles are settled to a thick slurry and the clarified washwater recirculated to the wet screen. 

The minerals processing industry has made contributions to all areas of technology, both in terms of products and processing. Technologies developed in the mineral industry are used extensively in the chemicals industry as well as in municipal and industrial waste treatment and recycling industry, eg, scrap recycling, processing of domestic refuse, automobiles, electronic scrap, battery scrap, and decontamination of soils. 

The principal raw material for the secondary lead industry is scrap batteries. Wastewater is generated from battery acid streams, washdown streams, and saw cooling for cracking the batteries. These... 

Batenus A series of processes, including solvent extraction and ion exchange, for recovering metals from scrap batteries. Developed by Pira, Germany, in 1993. 

PEAT, Inc., has developed the thermal destruction and recovery (TDR) system for the treatment of medical, hazardous, and radioactive wastes. An electronic plasma heating system is used to break down wastes into three phases. The ceramic, metal, and off-gas phases can aU be used as commercial products. The technology has been evaluated in treatability studies on infectious medical waste. Department of Defense (DOD) ammunition and energetic materials, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) weapon components, ash, electronic scrap, batteries, asbestos, and organic compounds. 

The metals industry has a massive infrastructure with established markets for all of its produets and by-products. The industry has enough capacity to recycle all of the scrap batteries produced globally many times over. Consequently the battery industry can be very selective over who they send batteries to for recycling. The companies selected by the battery industry for partnership will recycle all of their by-products that are affected by battery additions. 

Lead smelting is done in these two smelters and both of them use scrap batteries as the major material source. The smelting is by blast furnace and refining is done by electrolysis utilizing the largest cells in the world, developed by MMS. 

Hed, K, and R. Pfaff, Quality Assurance in Plastics Recycling by the Example of Polypropylene Report on the Experience Gathered with a Scrap Battery Recycling Plant, in F. LaMantia, ed.. Recycling of Plastic Materials, ChemTec Piiblications, Ontaido, 1993, pp. 171—185. 

Secondary lead is primarily sourced from scrap lead-acid batteries but also processed scrap metallics such as sheet and pipe. Secondary operations are characterised by relatively small plants in comparison with primary smelters, and are sized to handle scrap availability within a local area. This is determined by the economics of scrap battery collection and transport to the secondary operation, and it follows that the largest secondary plants are located in the high vehicle density areas of the USA. 

Metallic scrap is one significant source and can be pnrchased by the smelter or refinery at prices reflecting a nominal discount to the prevailing LME price for refined lead. However, the bulk of secondary lead is derived from the processing of recycled scrap lead-acid batteries. The trade is very localised with no general standard terms and the cost to the secondary smelter often simply reflects the cost of collection of scrap batteries. 

Cole, E R, Lee, A Y and Paulson, D L, 1981. Electrolytic method of recovery of lead from scrap batteries. Research investigation no 8602 (US Bureau of Mines). 

An average analysis of separated pastes from scrap batteries is shown in Table 10.1. 

If the cost of collection and transport of scrap batteries is taken as 100/t (or 194/t of lead), then the total cost of refined lead produced is US 633/t. 

The history of lead is as old as the recorded history of mankind. Its use as a valuable material in society has been equally long and varied. In more recent times awareness of lead s toxicity has restricted its widespread use and many older applications have been replaced by newer materials or have been phased out. Today the use of lead is dominated by the automotive lead-acid battery, and a key feature of this application is the ability to achieve a high level of recovery and recycle of scrap batteries. This attribute now makes lead the most recycled metal in use and approaching 60 per cent of the world s supply of lead is provided by recycled metal. Secondary processing and smelting is consequently as important a part of the extractive metallurgical industry as primary extraction from ores and concentrates. 

Report on the experience gathered with a scrap battery recycling plant... 

It has special features which set it apart from other direct smelting processes. It is unsuitable for large-scale production, but is flexible in operation and can treat a range of secondary materials (including scrap batteries) and recycled dusts and residues (containing lead, zinc and copper), as well as lead concentrates. It utilises one rotating furnace, which is completely enclosed in a vented enclosure, into which batches of dry, fine feed and oxygen are introduced. 

Scrap batteries are normally ehannelled through several independent merchants, from the small-scale local dealer who initially collects the battery, to large regional and national concerns, which deliver laige loads of battery scrap directly to the smelter. Alternatively, secondary producers may instead have their own captive merchant chain. However, there are important differences between countries. Whereas in Europe there are likely to be two or three merchants between the initial local collector and the recycling plant, in the USA and Japan there may only be one. This has implications both for merchant handling costs, and for the mai ins available to each individual link in the chain . 

The calculation of battery recycling rates normally uses data on replacement battery sales and vehicle scrappings for battery availability, and for battery consumption, net scrap exports, stock changes and secondary production from scrap batteries. All of these series are of course variable in quality and involve assumptions on average battery weight, which can have a major impact on the calculations. 

Once scrap batteries enter the collection chain (and reach the hands of merchants) they will eventually be recycled. The need to channel used automotive batteries into the recycling system more effectively has been increasingly recognised in new legislation passed in a number of countries. 

The Tonolli CX process can apparently achieve recovery efficiencies of 99 per cent of the metal content and 95 per cent of the polypropylene in scrap batteries. Sappington Hudson, The Tonolli CX battery breaking system , in ILZSG (1988). 

Metal Bulletin publishes indicative lead scrap prices for the UK maricet and (since 1992) for the European market, on a weekly basis. The prices quoted are considered to be representative of business between the largest merchants and scrap consumers, and are normally related to a specific LME session. For the UK market. Metal Bulletin provides quotations (on a delivered consumer basis) for the following types of lead scrap soft scrap, battery plates, and whole batteries. In addition, a price for lead ashes and residues is indicated, which is based on the LME price, net of a treatment charge. For the European market, prices are provided for soft lead scrap and drained batteries (on a cif Rotterdam basis). A similar range of regular lead scrap price information is provided for other regional markets by their own locally-based publications like American Metal Market and Metals Week in North America, and by Japan Metal Bulletin. 

However, as weU as cyclieal faetors, realised prices in particular markets at any time will also depend a great deal on underlying local supply/demand conditions for scrap. In the USA, for instance, large transportation distances mean that there can be wide regional variations in scrap prices. Traditionally, scrap battery prices have been higher in the North East because of greater competition for material from domestic and Canadian plants, and from overseas smelters, and on the West Coast because of substantial export demand from Mexico and South East Asia. Conversely, scrap prices have... 

The share of secondary refined lead should continue to rise in the foreseeable future. Firstly, for environmental reasons, governments in a growing number of countries will require that a higher proportion of used, scrap batteries are recycled, rather than simply being dumped. This enforced recycling may increasingly displace the market-based, economic incentives... 

See da Sa (op dt) and Bomsel and von Hirrschhausen (op dt). More specifically, Boddy and Suttie, Scrap battery collection - a review of new opportunities in ELDC (1994), outline possible options for improving battery recycling systems. 

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