Improving the recycling technology of consumable vehicle components

Waste recycling is an important part of sustainable development. The recycling of end-of-life vehicles includes the crushing of their components to the required level of material recovery and subsequent separation according to the particle characteristics of these materials using magnetic, gravity, electrostatic, eddy current separation, air classification and information sorting methods. According to EU directives, 95% of the total weight of an end-of-life vehicle must be recycled with the reuse of materials. Such a high value can be achieved by recycling all materials of the end-of-life vehicle, even those that do not contain valuable materials such as air filters. This article is dedicated to improving the technology for recycling consumable vehicle components, particularly air filters. Used vehicle air filters are a source of secondary raw materials, mainly filter material made of paper or polyester, polyurethane and plastics. It was proposed to improve the existing technological recycling of used vehicle air filters by using frictional separation for extraction of foamed polyurethane instead of separation in liquids of certain density. According to the proposed technological scheme, the recovery of polyurethane foam is 75.9% with the potential to increase it to 83.6% by constructing a scheme with the circulation of a product with a particle size of +5 mm. The proposed technological scheme is more environmentally friendly as it does not require the use of water and reagent solutions.