ECONOMIC-CONSIDERATIONS OF BATTERY RECYCLING BASED ON THE RECYTEC PROCESS

The Recytec process is successfully operated on a continuous industria l base since autumn 1994. All the products are regularly re-used witho ut any problems and environmental limits are fully respected. The Euro pean Community Battery Directive is valid since many years and only a few countries like Switzerland and The Netherlands have implemented it in national guidelines. In the meantime, battery producers have accep ted the necessity of the recycling of mercury-free batteries in order to prevent the contamination of municipal waste streams by other heavy metals, such as zinc and cadmium. Recycling processes like the Recyte c process are considered by the battery producers as highly expensive and they are looking for cheaper alternatives. Steel works are confron ted with a market change and have to produce less quantities of better quality steels with more stringent environmental limits. The electric are furnace (EAF), one of the chosen battery destruction techniques, is producing 20% of the European steel. Even if the battery mixes cont ain only mercury-free batteries, the residual mercury content and the zinc concentration will be too high to insure a good steel quality, if all collected batteries will be fed in EAF. In Waelz kilns (productio n of zinc oxide concentrates for zinc producers) the situation is the same with regard to the residual mercury concentration and environment al limits. Sorting technologies for the separation of battery mixes in to the different battery chemistries will presently fail because the r e-users of these sorted mercury-free batteries are not able to accept raw waste batteries but they are interested in some fractions of them. This means that in any case pretreatment is an unavoidable step befor e selective reclamation of waste batteries. The Recytec process is the low-cost partner in a global strategy for battery recycling. This pro cess is very flexible and will be able to follow, with slight and inex pensive adaptations of the equipment, the trend in mercury content and quantities of collected batteries.