Robots ensure the recycling of your waste

Do you have an old mobile phone or two in your drawer at home, or an outdated PC that you need to recycle? Such products contain metals that are rare or expensive to extract, such as copper, nickel, and cobalt. We need these metals to make new electronic products.

In Norway, we have an efficient system for the collection and recycling of electrical products. We achieve a high recycling rate for the most commonly used metals and materials. However, as electronics have become more advanced, the products have also become more complex and intricate, incorporating a variety of metals for which we currently lack effective recycling processes. These include rare earth metals and others that are classified as critical raw materials by the EU.

Now, NORCE aims to collaborate with international partners to increase recycling.

– Our contribution to solving the raw material crisis is to influence various stages of the value chain with advanced technologies, innovative processes, and new business models. One of the most important aspects is to automate the recycling processes that are currently done manually, says Nabil Belbachir, research director at NORCE.

It is entirely unrealistic that today's manual sorting systems at recycling stations can manage to extract all the critically important metals and minerals that exist only in small quantities in electrical and electronic waste, which includes all waste that runs on electricity or batteries, uses or conducts electricity.

Extracting more

Researchers will develop processes based on scalable, flexible robots equipped with artificial intelligence to achieve more precise, efficient, and profitable recycling. Only then can a much larger share of the important metals and minerals be extracted and recycled.

The EU's directive on critical raw materials, adopted in March 2023, aims for the EU to cover 25 percent of the consumption of critical raw materials through recycling.

– Artificial intelligence and robotics are crucial to achieving this goal and ensuring access to critical raw materials. At NORCE, we will use our expertise in the field to develop the technology so that both Norway and the rest of Europe can meet their recycling targets, says Belbachir.

RENAS is one of the partners in the project. They collect, process, and recycle over 80,000 tons of electronic waste and 1,200 tons of batteries annually.

– More reuse of valuable components and materials will create more sustainable and robust value chains. Robotics and artificial intelligence can contribute to better sorting and identification of critical materials, so we can truly utilize the material potential in the products we already surround ourselves with," says Bjørn Arild Thon, CEO of RENAS.

Renas is committed to developing new knowledge and technology to achieve increased reuse and recycling of technological products and batteries. In this way, we save nature and the environment from the extraction of new materials while generating value for industry and society.

Manual and dangerous

Today, disassembly and sorting are predominantly done manually. It is people who disassemble equipment and cables. Splitting cables to extract copper is, for instance, a partially manual process. It is also people who remove hazardous waste such as batteries and gas cylinders from the electrical and electronic waste (EE-waste). EE-waste is shredded and separated into material types before being sent to smelters in Norway or abroad. The major types of metals and plastic are sorted automatically, but many of the smaller occurrences of critical raw materials are currently lost in the process.

The project is an SFI initiative named Re-and De-Manufacturing: Effective Critical Raw Materials Recovery from Urban. NORCE leads the SFI.

SFI stands for Center for Research-based Innovation and develops competence that is important for innovation and value creation. The scheme is funded by the Research Council of Norway.