Fabrication of Waste Cable Stripping Machine for Recycling Copper Material

Abstract

With the rapid growth of civilization and the constant expansion of electrical cables, there has been an increase in the amount of used cable in recent years. But for recycling used cables, the local recyclers have not yet been reached the machine. They were mostly using open burn technology. It ended up with lot of health issues, environmental pollution, poor quality copper and others. By aiming for this, a copper cable recycling machine was built in this project to achieve a pollution-free environment for the copper recycling process, resulting in a significant increase in the creation of a healthy environment for waste copper cable recyclers at the lowest possible cost. Using AUTOCAD 2020, the conceptual design of the machine was done. The machine consists of frame, motor with adjuster, rotary V-shaped rod and rotary tool with adjuster. All the parts of the machine were collected and/or fabricated, and they were also assembled together with the help of a metal arc welding process to form the rigid structure. The result declared that the machine used stripping technology to separate the plastic and copper from the used cables.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

The cable is crucial parts of any electrical and electronic machine/equipments, houses and industries to pass information, command and electricity. There is growing need for ideal separation of valuable copper metal from waste cable Resource utilization of cable waste is key area of research work. Copper is one of the prime raw materials of the Indian economy. However, relatively very few resources are available for copper material in India.

In 21st century, the used copper cable recycling is an environmental and human health issues for the entire world. To solve these practical problems, peoples are keenly looking into the suitable and best technique of recycling copper from used cables. All over the world, the West Africa is the main point for recycling the used cables. Waster copper cable recyclers are using mechanical shredding and open burning techniques to separate the copper form the plastic insulation materials in West Africa. The burring of copper cables, highly reliable chemical containing toxic gases is exposed to the atmosphere which creates potential environmental and health problems. To overcome the above said problems, the mechanical stripping is suitable alternative solution according to the Blacksmith Institute (USA).

Xiao et al (2016) discussed different treatment techniques (stripping machine technology, mechanical crushing sorting technology, high-pressure water jet recovery technology, chemical processing technology, cryogenic technology, heat recovery technology and ultrasonic separation technology) available for recycling scrap wire and cable according to China's national conditions. From the above mentioned the stripping machine technology is selected for recycling the copper from the used cables due to its simple construction, low cost and flexibility. However, it has the disadvantages of noisy operation, parts wear and energy consumption. Moreover, it also creates dust during processing.

Asante et al (2016) documented electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) intrusion processes in Ghana. This paper addressed the mechanical shredding and open burning as primitive technology used in Ghana for recycling the metal from plastics. Yang et al (2010) simulated copper recycling process by cable granulator method by finite element method. Stress and strain distribution in the cutting tool and copper wire in cable granulator method was studied. It is revealed that the different region different stress distributions occur. Yokayama et al (2011) performed metallic copper from polymer-insulated copper wire by mechanical means. It is ascertained that the recovery of copper was progressed with increasing the number of rolling times. Li et at (2017) collected the literature papers in the area of waste copper cable recycling and treatment technologies. It is learnt that waste copper cables-the important “urban mineral”- should be effectively exploited to improve waste cable recycling industry. Bigum et al (2017) performed investigated analysis on misplaced special waste to environmental impact through life cycle assessment modelling. It is concluded that the recovering rare metal would it be possible to reduce the loss of abiotic resource from the system. The presence of the rare metal in special waste is on special focus currently.

Hence, this mini-project work deals on improving the efficiency of recycling copper from used cables by its unique design and robust fabrication under very low cost. Upon completion of this work recycler will grasp this technique for recovering pure copper metal from the used cables.

II. PARTS OF WASTE CABLE STRIPPING MACHINE

The design of waste cable stripping machine was drawn using Schematic diagram. The waste cable stripper machine mainly consists of electrical motor, drive shaft, tool with adjuster and frame. The parts are fabricated as per the proposed design by field study. The manual metal arc welding process is enabled for joining all the parts rigidly. The parts of the waste cable stripper machine is detailed in the following sections 3.1-3.4.

III. WASTE CABLE STRIPPING MACHINE AND ITS WORKING

The assembly of waste cable stripping machine is shown in Figure 6. It has dimensions of 40 mm length, 10 mm breadth and 40 mm height. The total weight of the machine is 12 kg. The waste cable is stripped into the pure copper and plastic with the help of waste cable stripper machine and it is schematically illustrated in Figure 7. The rotary taper rod is rotated when the motor is switched on. The gap between the rotary tool and taper rotary rod is maintained by adjusting the head according to the diameter of the waste cable. Under the circumstances, the waste cable is inserted into the gap to strip the pure copper. Finally, the stripped cables are separated from the waste plastics and are packaged for futuristic purposes.

Conclusion

This paper discus the waste cable recycling machine based on the stripping principle. AutoCAD 2000 was used to configure the structure of the proposed machine; the following conclusions can be drawn from the research work. 1) The parts of the waster copper cable recycling machine were fabricated rigidly as per the design. 2) During the assembly process, metal arc welding was utilized and robust structure was constructed for recycling the waste copper cables. 3) The fabricated machine can yield highest pure form of copper from the waste cable without any sort practical issues in easy, economic and eco-friendly manner.

References

[1] Sa Xiao,Wei Xiong,Lijun Wang &Qiaolin Ren. “The Treatment Technology of Recycling Scrap Wire and Cable” 4th International Conference on Sustainable Energy and Environmental Engineering, pp.500-503 (ICSEEE 2015) [2] Liquan Li, Gongqi Liu, Dean Pan , Wei Wang, Yufeng Wu & Tieyong Zuo ‘Overview of the recycling technology for copper-containing cables Resources’ Conservation & Recycling,pp.132-140(2017) [3] LI Yang, LUO Zhen,SONG Kailei, AO Sansan& WANG Rui ‘Simulation of cutting process in the cable’ recycling system, pp.120-126(2016) [4] Kwadwo Ansong Asante, John Pwamang,Yaw Amoyaw-Osei & Joseph Addo Ampofo ‘E-waste interventions in Ghana’Rev Environ Health,pp.01-04( 2016 ) [5] Seiji Yokoyamaa ,Sakae Takeuchib & Nik Hisyamudin Bin Muhd Norc ‘Mechanical Separation of Metallic Copper from Polymer-Insulated Copper Wire’ international conference on advances in materials and processing technologies,pp.1527-1532(2010)

Copyright

Copyright © 2023 Rajamanickam S, Snegan B, Harish Kumar V, Vishwa V. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.