Closing the loop on non-ferrous scrap

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Closing the loop on non-ferrous scrap

Innovation: 18 robots in a row perform vehicle recycling

At the Obourg facility of Comet Traitement in Belgium, Europe’s biggest automobile shredder, a 7,000-HP machine processes 300 tons of scrap cars each hour. That’s heavy-duty metal handling at its best. In the direct vicinity, a completely different high-speed automation process takes place: The “Megapicker“ line with 18 Stäubli SCARA robots sorts the precious non-ferrous metal fractions – 15,000 tons per year, with a cycle time of one second per robot. This is outstanding – worldwide.

Nobody would expect the highest-level robot-based industrial automation at a site where scrap cars are shredded. And indeed, this situation is unique: At the Comet Metalsambre site in Obourg near Mons, Belgium, heavy-duty metal handling is taking place. In large numbers, end-of-life vehicles are dismantled and shredded. But in a new building, the highest precision is requested. It is the end of the process, as Grégory Lewis, R&D Officer at Comet, explains: “Here we are sorting the shredded non-ferrous metal fractions and making them ready for re-use.“

Closing the loop with “reverse metallurgy“

This is great progress in the value chain of metal recycling. Grégory Lewis: “Part of our car recycling process is the concentration of the remaining non-ferrous metals within a fraction called ZORBA, which means zinc, aluminum – this is the biggest part – copper, brass, stainless steel, and printed circuit boards. We were used to exporting this material to Asia, where it was sorted manually and fed back into smelting. From 2017 on, we started to think, ‘Could we secure this kind of material, valorize it and use it within Europe?’”

That was the starting point of the “reverse metallurgy” project, which has now been put into practice with the Megapicker. Comet approached the Liége-based automation expert Cilyx, which had experience in designing highly automated, robot-based processes, but not in metal recycling. Grégory Reichling, CEO of Cílyx: “At first, we had to find a technology to characterize the single metal fractions for small parts in high quantities.“