Saturday, November 9, 2013

No. 143: Technology to recycle polycarbonate ABS resin used in flat-screen TVs (November 7, 2013)

Technology:
Sharp established a technology to recycle high-performance resin polycarbonate ABS resin used in flat-screen TVs. Because prolonged use deteriorates polycarbonate ABS resin, it cannot easily be recycled for home electric appliances. The company developed an additive to recover the deterioration in collaboration with Kansai Recycle Systems in Hirakata city, Osaka Prefecture. This additive allows used polycarbonate ABS to recover almost the same product characteristics as new one, and the cost to recycle polycarbonate ABS with this additive is expected to be the same as the cost to use new one. 

 Parts of in-car air-purifier that employ 
recycled polycarbonate ABS

Polycarbonate ABS accounts for more than 50% of all resins used in flat-screen TVs. Although it is a major material characterized by impact resistance and flame resistance, it is currently recycled for only sundries because of the difficulty of recycling. Sharp plans to use recycled polycarbonate ABS for new flat-screen TVs, but only 3 million flat-screen TVs are being recovered annually at present, a well below the break-even point for recycling. Accordingly, recycled polycarbonate ABS will presumably be applied to new flat-screen TVs beginning in 2018. In the initial stage, it will be used for in-car air-purifiers.   

 High precision resin sorting equipment

No comments:

Post a Comment