INNOVATIVE RECYCLING TECHNOLOGY FOR END OF LIFE REFRIGERATOR USING HIGH SPEED CUTTING SYSTEM WITH SAFE RECOVERY OF FLUOROCARBON GAS FROM POLYURETHANE FOAM

摘要

An innovative technology has been developed for the recycling treatment of End of Life refrigerators using a high speed cutting system with the safe recovery of the fluorocarbon gas from the polyurethane foam.The breakthrough of two idealized targets has been achieved by the following innovations consisting of (1) high speed/high frequency impact cutting, and (2) high pressure rolling. "High Speed/High Frequency Impact Cutting" technology results in two key advantages: (1) a high cutting speed of about 200 mm/second, that is 2～7 times faster than the conventional saw-type cutting, and (2) the cutting blade made of a special steel is able to cut any of the refrigerator components. The impact cutting has the further merits of (3) very low friction heat, (4) long life of cutting blade, and (5) no need to fasten the object to be impacted. It is known that a given impact having a higher speed than the object's critical impact speed, i.e., the propagation speed of the plastic wave within the object body, breaks the object impacted point down into small gains. "High Pressure Rolling" technology has the following two key functions: (1) liberation of constituent materials from each other, and (2) liberation of the fluorocarbon gas from unit cells of the insulator polyurethane foam. A sophisticated explosion proof mechanism has been developed for the extraction/recovery of the cyclopentane or butane gas.