RECYCLING OF ELECTRONIC SCRAP

摘要

The ever-increasing demand for durable consumer products, which contain electric and electronic components, results in a corresponding demand for the recycling of damaged and discarded equipment. Owing to the heterogeneous nature of the material used in these products, a variety of recycling techniques have to be applied to ensure the safe and environmentally friendly re-use of the major part of these materials. Apart from plastic, metals such as iron and non-ferrous metals, e.g.: aluminium, copper, lead, tin, chromium nickel etc., are contained in sheets, cages, cables, keyboards, printed circuit boards, solder and in insulating material. In addition, PCBs and various parts of electronic devices contain precious metals, including gold, silver and metals belonging to the platinum group. As a result, the diverse nature of the materials contained in electronic scrap, demands very different approaches to efficient recycling. Initially, plastic and metals have to be separated by mechanical, thermal or chemical treatment. Achieving this economically, and in an environmentally friendly way, makes mechanical and metallurgical treatment one of the most important process steps in the recycling of electronic scrap. The Department of Nonferrous Metallurgy has invested substantial time and effort in investigating how to optimize the metallurgical treatment of secondary materials, such as the secondary metallurgy of copper, during which the metallic content of electronic scrap is processed after mechanical separation from other material. The metals remaining after the separation, i.e. copper, tin, lead, zinc and precious metals are then recycled. In addition, various parameters (temperature, slag composition, gas treatment etc.) relevant to the reduction and refining processes were also included in the study.