Improvement of jig efficiency by shape separation, and a novel method to estimate the separation efficiency of metal wires in crushed electronic wastes using bending behavior and “entanglement factor”

To limit the effects of wire entanglement, two methods of shape separation were investigated. These shape separation techniques increased the recovery of Cu wires in the Cu concentrate from 64% (without shape separation) to 97% (with shape separation using probability of passage) and 95% (with shape separation using induced entanglement). In addition, estimation of jig separation efficiency using the entanglement factor is proposed.