CFL Pre-treatment
Crush and Sieve Plant
Mercury Recovery Plant
Recycled Fractions
Process
Crush and Seperation
Reclite utilises state of the art treatment technology which includes crushing, separation and mercury recovery. The plant is fully automated and easy to operate. Its versatility allows for processing of the various types and sizes of lamps, separating them into glass, aluminium end caps, ferro metal components and phosphor powder.
The crush and sieve plant operates at sub pressure, thereby preventing mercury from being released into the environment as exhaust air, this is constantly discharged through the internal carbon filters.
The entire crush and separation plant is incorporated in a container. A pre-treatment step treats only the CFL's which feeds into the separation plant via a drum turner. A conveyor feeds the linear tubes to a hammer mill in the separation plant: the resulting combined fractions are air conveyed through a separation tower, where the glass and metal fractions are removed. The glass and metal parts are then crushed further and air conveyed to a second separation tower. Glass resulting from the sieving operation, after the first separation tower, is crushed further and air conveyed through a third separation tower. The glass fragments, removed by the third separation tower, are fed to a rotary drum feeder and transferred to a discharge conveyor to transfer the by-product out of the processing unit.
The air stream that has passed through the separation towers contains phosphor powder. The air stream passes through a cyclone, where the powder is collected in a distiller barrel, and then passes through two dust filters, where the remaining dust is removed and deposited in distiller barrels. The air stream then passes through four-carbon filters to remove any mercury vapour before passing to atmosphere via a combined vent.
Recovered glass, aluminium and metals are dispatched to other companies for use as raw materials or for further processing.
Mercury Recovery
The mercury powder is distilled on site. The appropriate program is selected, and the mercury recovery process commences. A vacuum is applied to the unit. The after-combustion chamber and process chamber are then electronically heated. Any organic content in the resulting vapour is oxidised in the after-combustion chamber, and the mercury vapour is condensed, in a condenser, that is cooled by a chilled glycol refrigeration unit. The condensed mercury is removed from the collection chamber and stored prior to dispatch as a product.
Recycled Fractions
- Glass
- Aluminium
- Plastic
- Phosphor Powder
- Ferro Metal
- Mercury (99 % Purity)
Recycling Flow Diagram
