Desarrollo del proceso de reciclaje de aluminio a partir de envases de aerosol

Abstract

There were studied three processes of aluminum recycling from aerosol cans with a decoating process of the organic coating on the aluminum surface with the aim to establish the most viable technically and economically. All of the components were analyzed in order to establish their proportion, the polymers in a proportion of 24 % were identified by FTIR as polyethylene, polypropylene and in the case of the elastomers they corresponded to acrylonitrile – butadiene rubber, a pyrolysis method was used to identify them, 9 % of the metal accessories were recognized as steel, 56 % corresponded to the coated body which was identified as aluminum mainly, the metal part was analyzed by spark emission spectroscopy, and the 11 % was the residual gas. The best conditions for the first recycling process, which include a leaching process in sulfuric acid (98,5%) were 3 min at 20 % of solid material respect to the acid, a melting temperature of 750 °C during 1 hour. The best conditions for the second recycling process, which include a thermal treatment in an oxidizing atmosphere as the decoating process, were found at 600 °C during 15 min with a melting temperature of 800 °C during 1,5 hours with 150 % of the equimolar salt mixture as load flux. The conditions for the last process, which include a thermal process in a reducing atmosphere, as the decoating process, were 600 °C during 30 min with a melting temperature of 850 °C during 1,5 hours with 200 % of load flux. The first process resulted the most productive.