France – Electronic, electromechanical and electrotechnical supplies – CONCEPTION ET FABRICATION D'UNE INSTALLATION DE SEPARATION TRIBOELECTROSTATIQUE DE MELANGES GRANULAIRES ISSUS DES DEEE

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) currently represents one of the most complex and rapidly evolving waste streams to manage. It contains a significant portion of engineering plastics – notably ABS, PS, PC, or PA – used for their good mechanical and thermal properties. However, a significant proportion of these plastics incorporates brominated flame retardants (BFRs), added to meet the fire safety requirements of electrical equipment. The presence of these brominated compounds poses a double challenge: on the one hand, it prevents their direct recycling due to the risk of chemical contamination and, on the other hand, it leads to their incineration, a costly and environmentally unsatisfactory solution. Incineration costs can reach 800 € per tonne (value to be confirmed according to the flow and BFR content), not to mention the harmful environmental impacts linked to the formation of toxic compounds. The DEVIPEEE (Innovative Decontamination and Valorisation of Brominated Plastics from WEEE) project aims to address this issue by proposing an innovative approach of triboelectrostatic separation coupled with physical and chemical decontamination processes. This device will enable the valorisation of non-brominated resins present in mixed plastic flows from flotation tanks, while reducing the volumes destined for incineration.