title: Assessment of toxic metals in waste personal computers.
abstract: Considering the enormous production of waste personal computers nowadays, it is obvious that the study of their composition is necessary in order to regulate their management and prevent any environmental contamination caused by their inappropriate disposal. This study aimed at determining the toxic metals content of motherboards (printed circuit boards), monitor glass and monitor plastic housing of two Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors, three Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) monitors, one LCD touch screen monitor and six motherboards, all of which were discarded. In addition, concentrations of chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg) were compared with the respective limits set by the RoHS 2002/95/EC Directive, that was recently renewed by the 2012/19/EU recast, in order to verify manufacturers' compliance with the regulation. The research included disassembly, pulverization, digestion and chemical analyses of all the aforementioned devices. The toxic metals content of all samples was determined using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The results demonstrated that concentrations of Pb in motherboards and funnel glass of devices with release dates before 2006, that is when the RoHS Directive came into force, exceeded the permissible limit. In general, except from Pb, higher metal concentrations were detected in motherboards in comparison with plastic housing and glass samples. Finally, the results of this work were encouraging, since concentrations of metals referred in the RoHS Directive were found in lower levels than the legislative limits.
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Politechnioupolis, Chania 73100, Greece.
authors.forename: Konstantinos
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kolias
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Politechnioupolis, Chania 73100, Greece. Electronic address: john_chach@yahoo.gr.
authors.forename: John N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Hahladakis
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Politechnioupolis, Chania 73100, Greece. Electronic address: gidarako@mred.tuc.gr.
authors.forename: Evangelos
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gidarakos
mesh_terms: D002104:Cadmium / Q000032:analysis; D002857:Chromium / Q000032:analysis; D003201:Computers; D059029:Electronic Waste; D005898:Glass; D006115:Greece; D006256:Hazardous Waste; D007854:Lead / Q000032:analysis; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D008628:Mercury / Q000032:analysis; D008670:Metals / Q000032:analysis*; D008838:Microcomputers; D008872:Microwaves; D010969:Plastics; D059027:Recycling; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D006256:Hazardous Waste; D008670:Metals; D010969:Plastics; D002104:Cadmium; D002857:Chromium; D007854:Lead; D008628:Mercury
keywords: Cathode ray tube; Liquid crystal display; Personal computer; Plastics; Printed circuit boards; Toxic metals