Using vacuum pyrolysis and mechanical processing for recycling waste printed circuit boards

The constant growth in generation of waste printed circuit boards (WPCB) poses a huge disposal problem because they consist of a heterogeneous mixture of organic and metallic chemicals as well as glass fiber. Also the presence of heavy metals, such as Pb and Cd turns this scrap into hazardous waste. Therefore, recycling of WPCB is an important subject not only from the recovery of valuable materials but also from the treatment of waste. The aim of this study was to present a recycling process without negative impact to the environment as an alternative for recycling WPCB. In this work, a process technology containing vacuum pyrolysis and mechanical processing was employed to recycle WPCB. At the first stage of this work, the WPCB was pyrolyzed under vacuum in a self-made batch pilot-scale fixed bed reactor to recycle organic resins contained in the WPCB. By vacuum pyrolysis the organic matter was decomposed to gases and liquids which could be used as fuels or chemical material resources, however, the inorganic WPCB matter was left unaltered as solid residues. At the second stage, the residues obtained at the first stage were investigated to separate and recover the copper through mechanical processing such as crushing, screening, and gravity separation. The copper grade of 99.50% with recovery of 99.86% based on the whole WPCB was obtained. And the glass fiber could be obtained by calcinations in a muffle furnace at 600 deg. C for 10 min. This study had demonstrated the feasibility of vacuum pyrolysis and mechanical processing for recycling WPCB.