Metal recovery is a kind of emerging industry in UK. And metal recycling is a £ 5.6 billion UK industry. The industry employs over 8,000 people and makes at a net contribution to UK balance trade. At the same time, UK is the first country in the world promoting the business of recycling scrap metal, and this country has carried out the scrap metal recycling plan in 2002, which had a good effect in the first year’s implement: processing 103 tons of scrap metal and other metal recycling accessories.
Copper scrap is used by both primary and secondary producers, and there are two main kinds of copper scrap for recycling today in UK
1.Clean, unalloyed, and uncoated copper solids, clippings, commutator segments, clean pipe and tubing, etc.
2.Copper wire/cable
---copper bright wire (bare bright wire): thicker than 1/16 of an inch and clean, no corrosion, no insulation.
---the highest grade of copper wire: still has insulation on it; copper content is 55% or higher by weight; does not have any aluminum or steel coating; the inside copper strands are more than 1/16of an inch or at least as thick as a standard pencil lead.
---medium insulated copper wire: copper content is 40%-50% by weight; the inside copper strands need to be more than 1/16 of an inch or at least as thick as a standard pencil lead.
---low copper content copper wire: lowest grade and has about 25%, the least amount of copper; includes computer cables and other heavily insulated wires.
---household copper wiring: it is the electrical wire commonly used in homes and buildings; covered by an outer insulation and contains 2 or 3 individually insulated copper wires inside.
---Christmas lights: use and broken Christmas lights can be recycled for its copper.
Scrap Copper Wire/Cable Stripping Process in UK
Scrap copper wire/cable recovery is a kind of scrap metal recycling with huge number and high recycle rate in UK. And the first step of scrap copper wire/cable recycling process is to separate the copper wire/cable from its insulating layer. And there are four methods:
1.Mechanical separating method
Processing by drum stripping machine: this process method is to deal with the copper wire/cable of the same thickness, and the factory of UK named Wolver Hampton is using this method. The copper wire/cable should be cut into proper segments in the first place and their length should be less than 300 mm, and then these segments are fed into the drum cutter to complete stripping. This process method has high comprehensive utilization level to recycle the copper and plastic from the scrap copper wire/cable; reduced plastic in the copper scrap after process and reduced air pollution when smelting.
Processing by wire stripping machine: it is used to strip thick copper wire/cable.
2.Deep freezing method: it is suitable for the copper wire/cable of various specifications. And it separates the copper from the insulation layer by crushing the fragile insulation layer after freezing.
3.Chemical separating method: this method is adopting a kind of organic solvent to dissolve the insulating layer to get high quality copper wire.
4.Thermal decomposition method: it is to burn off the insulating layer to get the pure copper wire.
