The recycling process

One of the main environmental challenges in the construction industry, is existing a strong social force in order to decrease the bulk transport of the building materials in urban environments. Considering this fact, applying more in situ recycling technologies for Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) could be the key. To achieve this goal, a new low-cost classification technology, called Advanced Dry Recovery (ADR) is being developed. ADR performs purely mechanically and in the moist state, i.e. without prior drying or wet screening. This choice reduces process complexity and avoids problems with dust or sludge. ADR is applied to remove the fines and light contaminants with an adjustable cut-point of between 1 and 4 mm for mineral particles. It uses kinetic energy to break the bonds that are formed by moisture and fine particles and can classify materials almost independent of their moisture content. After breaking up the material into a jet, the fine particles are separated from the coarse particles. ADR separation has the effect that the aggregate is concentrated into a coarse aggregate product and a fine fraction which includes the cement paste and contaminants such as wood, plastics and foams. Within HISER, field experiments will be performed by means of a novel mobile pilot plant containing different unit operations such as: attrition milling, screening (>16mm), and mobile ADR insulation beside integration of the sensors and quality control elements. Both the up-scaling of the ADR technology and the process design for the integration of all unit operations in the plant (requiring basic design, detailed engineering and built engineering) will be carried out as to finally build the mobile pilot plant.