Studies on gasification and melting characteristics of automobile shredder residue

The present technology to handle end of life vehicles (ELVs) is usually generating around 20-30% of automobile shredder residues (ASR) of a new car in weight, which is disposing of by landfill or combustion at cement kilns and incinerators. In recent past attempts to survey and compare various techniques such as pyrolysis, gasification and melting to treat ASR with better recycling rate has been made. Gasification and melting processes are operated at high temperatures with high destruction of hazardous components and the production of gases, mainly CO and H₂, which can be utilized as fuel gas or raw chemicals after cleaning. In this study, ASR sampled from a domestic shredding company was experimented in a lab-scale gasification and melting process to characterize some gaseous and slag products. At higher temperatures and lower air equivalent ratio (ER), CO, H₂ and CH₄ emission increased but CO₂, N₂ decreased. C₂H ₆ change in concentration at different ER was not clear. However, there was a tendency of increasing amount of emission at lower temperatures. Carbon conversion efficiency, gas yield and CO₂ increased with increasing ER. Thus, when temperature was higher, gas yield & carbon conversion efficiency was higher. By-product yield was related to carbon conversion efficiency and gas yield. The amount of produced slags as residue was analyzed with the characteristics of them.