Evaluation of mass loss in different stages of printed circuit boards recycling employed in temperature controllers

Abstract

The aim of this work was to evaluate mass loss in each stage of the recycling process for metal recovery from PCBs of controllers and temperature indicators of cold chambers. The stages of process consists of grinding, particle size classification, magnetic and electrostatic separation. It was analyzed 13 kg of PCBs. These PCBs were crushed and ground. The ground material were subjected to magnetic and electrostatic separator. The losses in the comminution stages were 12.69 % and are lower than those found in other related works that used mixtures of different types of PCBs, whereas in this work only one model plates were analyzed. 27.2 % absolute mass loss we reached out after particle size separation with Tyler Series with 1 mm sieve presents the higher mass losses in the whole process and this fraction was not processed as it results in PCBs powder dust that interferes negatively in the electrostatic separation. Comparing the losses in the stages of shredding of PCBs employed in temperature controllers with other studies involving PCBs from the automotive industry and from computers and cell phones, is remarkable that this type of board presents significantly greater potential to be processed for recovery of its materials.