METAL SLUDGES AND METAL DUSTS

Industrial and metal sludges come in an extremely wide range of forms. The challenge is that the quality of the end product must always be right – no matter the composition of the starting material. That is why BHS-Sonthofen systems are designed for flexibility.

Depending on the substances that have contaminated the sludge, for example, the temperature can be suitably adjusted during drying with a vacuum dryer. High temperatures, for example, ensure the optimum processing of oily sludges, while lower temperatures can save energy for feedstocks with a higher water content. The target products from the HTC-T horizontal dryer (vacuum dryer) are pure metal powders and purified sludges. This enables the valuable metals to be returned to the raw material cycle efficiently.

A granulator (single-shaft mixer) is then used so that smelters can process the metal powder further. This adds an event amount of binder to the fine powder, which leads to agglomeration or granulation. Depending on requirements, an additional press processes the recovered metals into briquettes that are easier to transport.

Machining processes are a common source of metal chips and dusts. These are usually extracted during the process and collected in big bags. These mixtures of different-sized chips and dusts need to be pre-processed for them to be recycled. BHS offers the right process solutions for this according to the starting material and customer requirements, for example, drying and granulating technology as well as crushing technology for larger chips.