Selected National Funded Projects

„Modular Disassembling Systems“ as a pilot project for EU proposals in CRAFT or Brite-EuRam

The goal of the proposed research project was to develop  - together with industry - a practical, technical/scientifical formulation of the problem by means of a particular demonstration project. Furthermore, there should be an increased co-operation between foreign partners together with EC-projects (in CRAFT) resulting from this system.

The topic of the planned demonstration project was an innovative and promising technique of disassembling. All the executed EC research projects are still limited to some small sections of the entire problem, like printed circuit boards, telephone sets, etc.

To offer new chances on international market for Austrian small and medium sized companies (SMEs) with innovative know-how, flexible and modular disassembling systems for electric and electronic devices are demanded. The scientifical/technical prototyping of such systems is planned to be a core of the proposed demonstration project.

 

 

Disassembly of MiniDiscs

SONY DADC Austria is one of the largest producers of optical storage units. Until now more than 900 million pieces have been produced. With the introduction of the MiniDisc the production increased again. It is typical for every industrial production that some of the MiniDiscs do not satisfy the desired high quality standard.

The rising waste disposal cost (in Austria the estimation forecasts a factor of 100% for the next five years) and the very high costs of human workers, who had to do this otherwise, were the main factors, that the MiniDiscs have to be recycled automatically. To separate the different materials for the following recycling processes it was necessary to disassembly them.

 

Therefore, an automated disassembly cell was designed and introduced.