title: Liberation characteristic and physical separation of printed circuit board (PCB).
abstract: Recycling of printed circuit board (PCB) is an important subject and to which increasing attention is paid, both in treatment of waste as well as recovery of valuable material terms. Precede physical and mechanical method, a good liberation is the premise to further separation. In this study, two-step crushing process is employed, and standard sieve is applied to screen crushed material to different size fractions, moreover, the liberation situation and particles shape in different size are observed. Then metal of the PCB is separated by physical methods, including pneumatic separation, electrostatic separation and magnetic separation, and major metal contents are characterized by inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). Results show that the metal and nonmetal particles of PCB are dissociated completely under the crush size 0.6mm; metal is mainly enriched in the four size fractions between 0.15 and 1.25 mm; relatively, pneumatic separation is suitable for 0.6-0.9 mm size fraction, while the electrostatic separation is suitable for three size fractions that are 0.15-0.3mm, 0.3-0.6mm and 0.9-1.25 mm. The whole process that involves crushing, electrostatic and magnetic separation has formed a closed cycle that can return material and provide salable product.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Resources Chemistry of Nonferrous Metals, Central South University, Changsha, 410083 Hunan, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: Jiangang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yi
mesh_terms: D003300:Copper / Q000032:analysis; D059029:Electronic Waste; D008280:Magnetics; D059027:Recycling / Q000379:methods*; D055672:Static Electricity
chemical_list: D003300:Copper