CHARACTERISATION OF AUTOMOTIVE SHREDDER RESIDUE

The autofluff residue of a Portuguese shredding facility was characterised aiming at identifying the presence of heavy metals in several constituents of these residues, in order to propose possible valorising solutions. Particle size analysis showed that average characteristic diameter (d50) was 6.5 mm, the coarser fractions (> 11 mm, representing 40 % of weight) being essentially composed of plastic pieces, rubber, foams and textiles, particles in the range 2-11 mm being composed of mixed materials, while in particles below 2 mm (referred as fines) the presence of glass, ceramics and other inorganic materials became very frequent, in spite of a very fine foam was also detected in the very fine fractions. XRD analysis of fines allowed detecting the crystalline phases quartz, calcite, rutile and magnetite. Elemental analysis by EDXRF was carried out on several fractions in the particle size range 0.02-2.0 mm, showing the presence of practically all the elements detected in all fractions, namely Fe, Zn, Cu, Pb, Ba, Sn, and also traces of Cd, Sb, Mo and Sr. Some of these metals are hazardous and can be problematic in what concerns the possible valorisation of the residue