Опубликована: Сен. 22, 2023
Hundreds of thousands kilometers communication and power (umbilical) cables flowlines lie undersea worldwide. Most these offshore have reached or will soon be nearing the end their service life, necessitating need for a viable recycling approach to recover some valuable material, e.g., copper. However, separation into constituent materials has proven very challenging due highly robust design composite (and flowlines) withstand conditions tough external plastic sheaths that protect against seawater corrosion. Here, we summarize findings cryogenic comminution subsea an effective recovery component materials. Heat transfer analyses complex multilayer umbilicals were conducted evaluate time required structures reach respective critical brittle-transition temperatures. Subsequently, was used as guide crush flowline umbilical under conditions. The results show temperature after approximately 1000s (i.e., 17 min) submergence in liquid nitrogen (LN). Comminution at temperatures near relatively efficient compared room-temperature processing. present evaluation heat lab-scale crushing afford accurate process modelling pilot decommissioned LN-doped atmosphere.
Язык: Английский