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Category: New cars

Closing The Circle

2024

Video: Closing The Circle

Video: Closing The Circle
Video: Beyond Twilight - Closing The Circle 2024, March
Closing The Circle
Closing The Circle
Anonim

EQUIPMENT

/ECOLOGY

LOCAL CIRCLE

CAR - ETERNAL LIFE

TEXT / MIKHAIL GZOVSKY

SECTOR FIRST, LEGISLATIVE

Perhaps not a single month passes without a major report from one of the manufacturers: the record for the release of certain models is again broken. But how many cars “die” every year, not everyone has heard. Meanwhile, in Germany alone, with a 30-million private fleet every year, up to 3 million cars joke, throughout Europe their number exceeds 9 million.

Throwing an old car on the road will not be allowed here, and the number of landfills is decreasing every year. Where do the "dead souls" disappear? Go to recycling. The so-called recycling problem was seriously worried by the world back in the 80s, when it became clear that it was impossible to save the environment without car recycling. The governments of most European countries and the USA reacted to this news quite adequately: they warned automakers about the upcoming mandatory processing of cars.

SECTOR TWO, TECHNOLOGICAL

According to the Volkswagen concern, the weight of an average passenger car is 1200 kg. Of these, 200 kg accounted for pig iron, 170 kg - to alloy elements and non-ferrous metals, 90 kg - to rubber, 50 kg - to glass, 25 kg - to paint, 65 kg - to "secondary" materials. So far, steel predominates - there are about half of it in the car.

During disposal, plastics have been and remain the most difficult materials. Their share is growing every year, having increased seven times in recent decades. The difficulty is that, unlike steel, up to several dozen types of plastics of five main groups are used in each machine, dominated by polycarbonates, polypropylenes and polyamides. After difficult sorting, each species requires its own processing approach. But metal parts are not so easy to reuse.

To solve the problem, large automobile companies are building factories that are comparable in scale to assembly production. However, this is not surprising: after all, the recycling process is essentially the same assembly, but in the reverse order.

First, the car enters the workshop of the so-called primary disassembly, where the remaining fuel, oil, brake fluid and coolant are literally shaken out of it on vibroinstallations - a total of about 20 liters. Then they remove the tires - there are no special problems with their processing. Many firms use spent tires to produce new ones, and some "distill" them … oil! About one ton of rubber scrap manages to get about 400 liters. 135 L of gas released in the process, together with the spent liquids, goes to the furnace of its own CHP. A positive side effect can be considered “washed” with 1 ton of old tires 140 kg of steel wire!

The machine, meanwhile, falls into the hands of workers, who force them to “shoot” the airbags, to deploy the belt tensioners. Then the battery is removed - specialized plants will take care of its fate; parallel dismantle parts that cannot be disposed of. Interestingly, until recently, they included … windshields and rear windows.

The fact is that the “triplex” consists of several layers of glass, separated by plastic, which prevents processing. Another stumbling block was the rear window heating. Recently, the problem was solved with the help of drum filters, screening plastic and heating threads.

But let us trace to the end the last path of the car. It is interrupted for a short time: semi-dismantled cars are sorted by make and model, washed and stored in a huge trading floor, where customers choose and even remove the parts they like on their own. Naturally, pre-paying them! A few weeks later, the time comes to give way to the next "old man", and the half-dressed skeleton goes into final dismantling. Here, the remaining unclaimed nodes are dismantled, which are returned to the counter, and the skeleton of the machine descends to the last "circle of hell", where it is crushed in giant "mills".

Installations with a capacity of up to several thousand kilowatts grind the remains of a car weighing about 300 kg into “porridge” in a matter of minutes. There comes the most delicate and crucial moment - separation. First, electromagnets trapping ferrous metals are used. Then, "playing" at different densities of materials and their reaction to wettability with water (the so-called flotation), non-ferrous metals are screened out from grains of glass, rubber and plastics. Such a method, for example, allows you to “get” up to fifty kilograms of pure copper contained in the wiring and electronic components of a Mercedes C-Class!

SECTOR THREE, ECONOMIC

Today, every self-respecting company, even at the design stage, provides for future car recycling. But how could it be otherwise - after all, the manufacturers themselves have to disassemble and dispose of the machine! First of all, they try to use those materials that are easier to recycle. But this is only half the battle: massive plastic parts should be easy to identify and dismantle. How to solve these problems, the A-class Mercedes clearly demonstrates: it is easy to remove up to 50 kg of plastic from the machine within half an hour and sort it out, guided by special stamping marks on the parts.

Soon after the first experiments on recycling, the companies found out with satisfaction that a seemingly unprofitable business could be profitable! Take for example the BMW of the third series: 85% aluminum and 65% plastics in each new car - secondary. Modern production technologies do not stand still. In the walls of the BMW recycling center near Munich, built in 1994, today 75% of the car is recycled, but in the near future all 95% will be recycled.

Thus, there is very little left for cars to complete a full life cycle … without affecting nature.

OUR HELP

Not so long ago, the countries of the European Union approved a draft law, according to which manufacturers are obliged to take out used cars from motorists free of charge. True, firms were not deprived of the opportunity to prepare for the “difficult times” - the law is likely to enter into force only by 2006.

The main stages of recycling:

1. Dismantling: first of all, everything that needs to be disposed of is removed and sorted from the car.

2. Full processing: the body skeleton goes to the shredder, after which only dust will remain from it.

3. Separation: from 300 kg of heterogeneous mass, plastics, metal and rubber will have to be separated.

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