Analysis of lead content in automotive shredder residue (ASR)

Automotive shredder residue (ASR) is a very heterogeneous waste, which could have a very high metal content on finest fractions ϕϕ < 6 mm produced by the shredding of end of live vehicles. The approval of Directive 2000/53/EC and its transposition to the European Union member states requires an analytical technique for in-situ checking of the content of some metals in ASR wastes. The objective of this study is the evaluation of total Pb content in the different fractions using a rapid measurement method to easily accomplish the current legislation. An experimental Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) spectrometer with tri-axial geometry was used to analyse the ASR in order to test the feasibility of this analytical technique. Likewise, a correction of the intensities by the incoherent scattering (Compton) radiation was made to compensate the matrix effects. The results show that values in the smaller fractions are bigger (11,600 mg kg−1 in the fraction <125 μm) than in the coarser fractions (4600 mg kg−1 in the fraction between 2 and 6 mm) and that such type of instrumentation enables a fast measurement with a limit of detection of 1.1 mg kg−1 for 1000 s measurement).