Remanufacturing Within a Sustainable Manufacturing Strategy: Recycling of Lead Anodes

Abstract

The global demand for raw materials is increasing consistently in the modern world such that a resource efficient handling becomes more and more important in today's manufacturing processes. Therefore, remanufacturing of degraded products and components is a major step within a sustainable manufacturing strategy. Remanufacturing planning has to consider heterogeneous raw material (used material), which has a direct impact on the refurbishing technology and the remanufacturing layout. This paper shows an analyzing concept regarding the planning of remanufacturing concepts to ensure reliable recycled products based on heterogeneous materials. The shown concept is substantiated with a case study "Recycling of lead anodes". The evaluation of three concepts for the development of an automated process to recycle lead anodes, which were subjected to heavy wear during the electrowinning process of non-ferrous metals like copper, nickel or zinc, is in focus.