Common processing methods for recycling waste wires and cables

With the improvement of people's living standards, household appliances and means of transportation (such as cars, motorcycles, electric bikes, etc.) are becoming increasingly popular, and the usage of wires and cables is growing larger and larger. Along with the upgrading and replacement of these items, the volume of scrapping and disposal is also increasing day by day. How should we deal with the recycling and reuse of waste wires and cables? What methods and approaches are there to turn waste wires and cables into treasure?

When recycling and processing waste wires and cables, our main goal is to obtain the non-ferrous metal copper inside. Therefore, for the waste wires and cables we recycle, if we ask how to deal with them, no matter which method is used, the ultimate goal is to separate the copper from the wire sheath. In pursuit of this outcome, we have developed various methods for dealing with waste wires and cables, such as burning, peeling, crushing, and freezing. Below, we summarize the recycling and processing methods of waste wires and cables as follows.

1. Manual peeling method; This method involves manually peeling off the insulation of wires and cables, which is inefficient and costly. It is relatively easy to handle for some cables and square wires, but for some rough and miscellaneous wires such as car wires, network cables, and disassembled wires from home appliances, the effect is poor. With the current economic development, labor costs are getting higher and higher, and fewer and fewer people adopt this method to handle waste wires and cables.

2. Incineration method; This method is a relatively traditional one. It directly burns waste wires and cables by taking advantage of the flammable property of the wire sheath and then recovers the copper inside. During the process of burning copper, the surface of the copper wire is severely oxidized, which reduces the recovery rate of non-ferrous metals. However, the burning wire sheath causes relatively significant pollution to the environment. Today, with the country's strong emphasis on environmental protection, it is explicitly prohibited.

3. Mechanical peeling method; This method employs a wire stripping machine, which is a semi-mechanized operation and requires one manual worker, resulting in a relatively high labor intensity. More importantly, this method is only applicable to some single-strand square wires and cables. If the raw materials we recycle are automotive wires, household wires, network cables, electronic wires, etc., it is not suitable to use wire strippers.

4. Mechanical crushing method; This method employs a combination of crushing and sorting. Through crushing, the waste wires and cables are stripped of their skin, and then the copper and plastic are separated by water washing, air flow differentiation, or electrostatic separation. This method has a wide range of applications and can not only process thick square wires and cable wires, but also automotive wires, motorcycle wires, electric vehicle wires, network cables, communication wires, home appliance disassembly wires, electronic wires and other raw materials. At the same time, compared with mechanical peeling equipment, it has a higher output and greatly reduces the intensity of manual work. In addition, this method is further divided into dry and wet types based on whether water is used for separation or not. Among them, the dry copper granulator equipment, due to its feature of not requiring water washing, has a relatively large market demand in today's strict environmental protection inspection.

5. Chemical method; When it comes to the word "chemistry", the issue that comes to mind most often is environmental protection. Indeed, this method requires the use of chemical solutions. Through the soaking treatment of the solutions, the wire insulation and copper are separated. The problem is that the chemicals it generates are difficult to handle and can cause significant environmental pollution. Therefore, this method is only in the experimental stage and has not been truly put into civilian use.

6. Freezing method; It sounds more sophisticated at first hearing. This method was also proposed in the 1990s. It uses liquid nitrogen as the refrigerant to freeze waste wires and cables at ultra-low temperatures, making them brittle. Then, through crushing and vibration, the plastic and copper are separated. This method is costly, difficult to operate on a large scale industrially, and has not been put into actual production.

The above has introduced various recycling and treatment methods for waste wires and cables. However, the mechanical crushing method is currently more common.