"Value from Waste" project
The growth of cleantech industry, the rise in the world market prices of metals, and concentration of metal production in China have resulted in a situation in which extraction of several metals from waste streams has become advisable even in Finland. Ever stricter recycling and utilisation rates for electronic waste are also pushing the development of recycling technologies. The purpose of the EU project "Value from Waste" was to develop recovery processes on a more sustainable basis, to clean materials of impurities that reduce opportunities for further use, and to increase the amount of recovered materials.
The methods developed in the project included mechanical pre-treatment, solution extraction, use of biological methods, and optimisation of treatment chains. The new treatment methods will enable the metal refining industry to use cleaner electronic waste in larger amounts.
In the two-year "Value from Waste" project of the research consortium AERTO (Associated European Research and Technology Organizations), VTT participated in joint technology R&D with the following six European research institutes: Fraunhofer ICT and Umsicht (Germany), CEA (France), TNO (the Netherlands), SINTEF (Norway), Tecnalia (Spain) and SP (Sweden). The project was co-ordinated by SINTEF from Norway.
Flotation is a separation method that separates hydrophobic particles from hydro
|Contact: Olli Salmi|
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland