Flexible automatic disassembly for the recycling of consumer goods

The development of disassembly processes and an appropriate reprocessing and cleaning technology are necessary for the recycling of used products and for the retransfer of products, assemblies, components and materials in the respective product and material cycles. The aim of the collaborative research centre 281 Disassembly Factories which is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and carried out at the Technical University Berlin is to develop a flexible automatic disassembly system for consumer goods. The paper presents disassembly processes and tools to separate multi-component systems into singular components, parts, and shapeless material. The plasma are cutting process was optimised for the disassembly of washing machines with regard to maximise feed speed and minimise removal particle emission. Thus automatic disassembly of interior parts can be done at lower costs compared to manual work. Expensive parts can be reused after cleaning. Cleaning with dry-ice blasting was analysed for this process step.