Abstract: A processing apparatus capable of separating and recovering resins and metals, respectively, from an object being processed, which has resins and metals as its constituent, comprises a first gastight area (102), in which temperature and pressure are regulated so as to permit selective thermal decomposition of resins from the object (150) being processed, a second gastight area (103), which is partitioned from the first gastight area by an openable and closeable partition (105C) and in which temperature and pressure are regulated so as to permit selective vaporization of metals from the object, first recovering chamber (111) connected to the first gastight area for recovering gases produced by thermal decomposition of resins, and second recovering chamber (115) connected to the second gastight area for recovering vaporized metals.

Abstract: A processing method by which metals may be recovered at a high purity from metal-containing waste materials.The method for processing metal-containing waste materials comprises crushing a metal-containing waste material to a particle size of 1-50 mesh, separating and recovering the metal-containing particles from the crushed portion, introducing the metal-containing particles into a vacuum heating furnace, pre-heating the furnace while under suction evacuation, and then raising the temperature of the furnace in stages while continuing the vacuum suctioning, recovering the metal and non-metal vapor produced at each temperature level using a condensing and adsorbing means, and recovering the liquated metals as melts. The method may be used to process waste batteries, copper-containing waste materials and the like in the same manner to recover high-purity metals.