Implementation of thermal processes for feedstock recycling of bromine and antimony, with energy recovery, from plastics Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE): Phase 1: literature survey/status update, evaluation, and ranking of combustion, gasification, and pyrolysis based technologies

Operational Experience 1 / 2 2 / 1 3 / 4 4 / 3 Profit expectations and ROI 1 2 3 2 Summarised 15 -10 14 -10 15 -14 14 -11In this report thermal processes were evaluated for their suitability for the feedstock recycling of bromine and antimony, with energy recovery, from WEEE.The processes of Austrian Energy, ALSTOM/Ebara, Von Roll RCP, and Gibros PEC were evaluated in detail with the defined criteria.All four processes are in principle able to process WEEE and as no weighting factors were defined for the criteria no 'best' process was determined.When weighting factors are added to the criteria, the evaluation and ranking is differentiated based on the following considerations:• When the main purpose of the process is decided to be "best available technology", the Gibros processes would be the 'best' process.• However, when "operational experience" together with low running costs is considered as the most important issue and given a high weighting factor, the Austrian Energy processes would rank the highest.• If "proven technology" is the criterion for the decision than ALSTOM/Ebara will be the process of choice because of the plant in Japan that is running with ASR As continuation, first has to be resolved with experimental tests if the bromine salts produced in the thermal processes are suitable as feedstock for the bromine industry.Furthermore, aiming the implementation of WEEE processing in 2004 co-operation with other industries and coprocess the WEEE plastics with their wastes is essential.The report was presented and discussed on the meetings of the European Brominated Flame retardant Industry Panel (EBFRIP) held on March 17, 2000 in Brussels, Belgium and of the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum (BSEF) meeting held on March 22, 2000 in Brussels.