STUDENTS STUDY SALVAGE OF JUNKED AUTOMOBILES

JUNKED AUTOMOBILES ARE THE TARGET OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING PROJECT NOW GETTING UNDERWAY AT IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY. ENGINEERING STUDENTS FROM A NUMBER OF DIVERSE FIELDS WILL ANALYZE, AND ATTEMPT TO SOLVE, THE GROWING PROBLEM OF SCRAPPED AUTOMOBILES. ONE OF THE MAIN GOALS IS TO FIND NOVEL BUT COST-EFFECTIVE WAYS TO SALVAGE MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF USABLE MATERIALS. ONE SUCH NOVEL APPROACH IS ION EXCHANGE, A CHEMICAL SEPARATION PROCESS THAT WOULD RETRIEVE SIZABLE AMOUNTS OF COPPER AND OTHER NONFERROUS METALS. BECAUSE OF THE MANY DIFFERENT METALS PRESENT (STEEL, COPPER, LEAD, NICKEL, ZINC, CHROMIUM) CARS CANNOT BE SIMPLY MELTED DOWN AND THE THE MATERIAL REUSED, EXCEPT BY USING LARGE, ADVANCED SEPARATOR-SHREDDERS THAT ARE ECONOMICALLY FEASIBLE ONLY IN BIG CITIES. BY COMBINING ION-EXCHANGE PROCESSES WITH THE OLDER PROCESS OF AMMONIA LEACHING, RESEARCHERS AT IOWA STATE HAVE RECOVERED COPPER FROM SCRAPPED CARS. ALTHOUGH THE IDEA HAS BEEN TRIED ONLY ON A SMALL LABORATORY-SCALE UNIT, ITS TECHNICAL, IF NOT ECONOMICAL, FEASIBILITY HAS BEEN PROVED. A LARGER PILOT PLANT IS BEING DESIGNED THAT WOULD TRANSLATE THE SMALL-SCALE STUDIES INTO AN ECONOMICALLY FEASIBLE INSTALLATION. /AUTHOR/

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Vol 42, No 7, P 20
• Publication Date: 1971-3-29

Media Info

• Serial:
  • Product Engineering
  • Publisher: McGraw-Hill, Incorporated

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automobiles; Ion exchange; Salvage; Separators
• Old TRIS Terms: Ion exchange tests; Junk; Shredders
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00223471
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: May 16 1971 12:00AM