Copper's Wide Applicaton in Modern Life

Copper, a kind of nonferrous metal, has a close relationship with human beings. In ancient times, it was mainly used for container, artwork,weapon casting.Now it is widely used in electricity, light industry, machinery manufacturing, construction, defense industry, etc. Its consumption is only lower than that of aluminum.

Electrical Appliance and Electron Market
The copper consumption of electrical appliance and electron occupies 28% of the total consumption. In 1997, these two market has been the second largest end users. For many appliances like cables, voltage transformer, motor, telephone wire&cable,etc, copper’s life is very long and can be recycled after 20 or even 50 years. However, for some other appliance and electron like small home appliance or consumer electronics, copper’s life is relatively short, usually5-10 years. Large appliance and consumer electronics both can be recycled, because besides copper, they also contain other important metals. But, the rate of small electron product recycling is still very low. The reason for this is because of their low copper content.

Transportation Equipment
Transportation equipment is the third largest copper consumption market, occupying 13% of the total consumption. The importance of transportation doesn’t change, just like the 1960s, but the use form of copper has changed greatly. Since many years ago, automatic radiator has been the most important end user in this field, but now copper’s consumption in automatic appliance and electron products has increased rapidly while decreased in radiator manufacturing. The average life of a car is 10-15 years, yet almost all the copper including radiator is recycled before the whole car is dismantled and recycled.

Since copper is of great importance and is not renewable, copper recycling is very important for the future of industry. And it is not difficult to find that electrical appliance, electron, industry machines and equipment are major sources to recycle copper. Wires, cables and AC radiators are of great recyclable value, Whirlston copper cable granulator and AC radiator recycling machines will make their recycling more efficient and profitable.