Recovery of Copper Values from Discarded Printed Circuit Boards

摘要

In the present study, discarded random access memory cards were evaluated as a secondary copper source. Both air and water fluidization process were investigated as the pretreatment steps followed by thermal exposure. A significant reduction of plastic/resin content from ~ 62% in feed to ~ 9% was attained in the underflow fraction of the water fluidization. Formation of the molten mass was observed at a thermal exposure of 1100 degrees C, whereas at 800 degrees C, a discrete structure with copper purity of 90.2% was attained. The adopted process provided an alternative pathway to recover metals without using any external additive and minimal gas generation because of the effective removal of epoxy resin. The experimental data revealed that 91% of copper values, i.e., ~ 31 g concentrate, could be recovered from 100 g of the RAM boards. The overflow product comprised of a calorific value of 4.5 x 10(6) J/kg and could be further used.