How to recycle waste circuit boards?

The circuit board (PCB) is the foundation of the electronics industry and an indispensable part of various electronic products. The main components of waste circuit boards are copper, aluminum, iron, zinc and other substances. These metals are all very precious and very valuable. In addition to the metal, the circuit board is left with resin powder, which is also a good industrial product.

If you want to recover mixed metals and resins from circuit boards, you should use scientifically sound methods to ensure high recovery rates. The most studied recycling methods can generally be divided into mechanical treatment, heat treatment, hydrometallurgy, biological treatment and supercritical methods.

Waste circuit boards recycling plant

Among them, mechanical treatment is the most commonly used method in the industry. Mechanical treatment is an effective method for pre-separation of different components of used circuit boards. The process is divided into three steps: dismantling, crushing and sorting.

(1) Disassembly is mainly to remove the electronic components on the circuit board.

(2) Pulverization is to pulverize the circuit board substrate into particles or powders, and the particle size varies according to the pulverization method.

(3) The main method of sorting is to use the differences in physical properties between substances, such as density, magnetism, electricity, surface properties and optical properties.

In addition, there are two types of mechanical treatment: dry physical type and wet type. However, the wet method will generate waste water when processing circuit boards, so it is not recommended. While the dry physical process is an environmentally friendly method, it is more common to use dry crushing methods today.