Shredder-sand forms quite a large part of the material known as shredder residues. Shredder-sand has previously been used as a backfill for underground mines. However, this will no longer be practicable in the future because of legislative changes. New ways therefore have to be found to recover more raw materials from the shredder-sand.

Shredder-sand consists partially of mineral components such as quartz, silicates, carbonates, etc., as well as organic substances and considerable quantities of iron and non-ferrous metals. Because there will be an increase in future not only in the quantity of shredder residues and therefore the quantity of shredder-sand, but also in the content of non-ferrous metals in these sands, recovery is also interesting from an economic point of view. This applies especially to the zinc and copper constituents.

The project ““Shredder-sand”: Recovery of fine-grained non-ferrous metal phases from shredder-sand” is a co-operation project run by SiCon GmbH, Recylex GmbH Deutschland and Volkswagen AG, with the Department of Mineral and Waste Processing at Clausthal University of Technology.

The aim is to develop a processing method which, in addition to the recovery of the non-ferrous metal constituents, also makes it possible to use the mineral constituents as an alternative construction material.

• Clausthal University of Technology, Clausthal-Zellerfeld
• Recylex GmbH, Goslar
• SiCon GmbH, Hilchenbach
• VW AG, Wolfsburg

Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

Support Code: 033R001

Project page at the r²-project association “Innovative technologies for resource-efficient – raw material intensive production processes”