Recycling Circuit Boards
“As changes in performance and profile of the electronic machine rapidly proceed according to needs of consumers, usage duration of the electronic machines is becoming shortened. Subsequently, the amount of the waste printed circuit boards generated is being increased. The producers have the increased burden of processing the waste electronic machine, and also environmental contamination due to the waste electronic machine causes a social problem. Since the waste printed circuit board contains a large amount of valuable metals, the valuable metals can be recovered via proper processes to allow it to be reused, which is very useful in term of resource utilization and prevention of environmental contamination.”
“In order to recover the valuable metal from the waste printed circuit boards, it is necessary to remove the non-metal component which occupies about 40.about.60% of the waste printed circuit boards. The process of separating the metal components and the plastic components from the waste printed circuit boards is broadly divided into a physical separation process and a wet process.”
Recent US Patents
1/11/2011
7,867,317
Pre-treatment process for liberation of metals from waste printed circuit boards using organic solution
Lee et al of the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, South Korea, have developeda method for recovering valuable metals contained in printed circuit boards based on organic solvents and electrostatic separations. (RDC 7/22/2011)