Largest electrical scrap processing plant in Poland opened

In Poland, a traditional mining company has recognised the opportunity that recycling represents and invested in the largest electrical scrap processing plant in the country. The fact that a disused copper mine in Lubin in Lower Silesia was chosen as the location for the highly automated plant is very much in line with the history of the region. After all, the copper in the electric motors and cables forms the basis of the core business of the mining company.
 
In a Europe-wide invitation to bid, the company from Lower Silesia decided in favour of the most progressive technology available on the market. The Polish construction company Budmax was responsible for constructing the building and infrastructure as well as for the comprehensive approval procedures. The technology for the complete processing plant was delivered by MeWa as a turnkey solution to the Polish partners. The recycling plant near to Lubin went into operation, recently.

The centrepiece of the plant is formed by the patented Querstromzerspaner QZ 2000 with a planned throughput of 12,000 metric tonnes per year in single-shift operation. First of all, environmentally harmful component substances and those that are dangerous to health are removed from the incoming material flow. The same applies to monitors and televisions. The presorted appliances are then fed to the MeWa Querstromzerspaner. Within a few seconds, the machine with its chain principle breaks down the composite materials and exposes the individual components.

Through an outlet slide, the QZ passes the shredded material to the downstream separation and sorting processes. A vibration conveyor then screens off the fine parts and a magnetic separator picks the ferrous parts out of the material flow. The remaining fraction runs through an automatic plastic separation unit, where parts with PVC content and various types of plastic can be separated individually. In manual sorting sections, specialist personnel then collect valuable components such as motors, transformers, processor boards or metal composites from the conveyor belt.

The capacitors and batteries that are undamaged after treatment in the QZ are also exposed and can be separated easily. Individual plastics can be shredded to the desired grain size in a subsequent granulation stage that is also in the same hall.

Alongside the raw materials from the copper mine, yet another source of raw materials has now opened up for the mining company. The final result, of course, is the same: where ores used to be mined underground, the MeWa Querstromzerspaner now exposes valuable raw materials. „Urban mining“ is what the experts call the systematic acquisition of raw materials from recycling, which means it is a core task for a mining company.