Development of Selective Dismantling Technologies for a Circular Economy

A circular economy requires dismantling and separation technologies that function across hierarchical scales, from products and components to particles and crystals. Conventional recycling relies mainly on shredding as a physical pretreatment and chemical separation for high-purity recovery, whereas energy-efficient, high-selectivity separation at the particle and component levels remains insufficient. This article reviews two approaches that bridge this gap: advanced mechanical comminution and electrical pulsed discharge. For small electronic waste, impact-type drum milling with controlled collision modes enables the preferential detachment of valuable parts with suppressed over-grinding, and its mechanisms can be quantified using coupled discrete element method (DEM) and DEM-CFD simulations. For lithium-ion batteries, pulsed discharge concentrates energy at the electrode interfaces through localized Joule heating and discharge-induced phenomena, enabling the direct delamination of active materials from current collectors under optimized circuit and environmental conditions. These examples demonstrate the importance of interface-focused energy input and the integrated design of dismantling and subsequent powder processing.