IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jwaste/v2y2024i2p9-168d1375713.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Thermo-Mechano-Chemical Processing of Printed Circuit Boards for Organic Fraction Removal

Author

Listed:
  • Sergey M. Frolov

    (Department of Combustion and Explosion, N. N. Semenov Federal Research Center for Chemical Physics, Moscow 119991, Russia)

  • Viktor A. Smetanyuk

    (Department of Combustion and Explosion, N. N. Semenov Federal Research Center for Chemical Physics, Moscow 119991, Russia)

  • Anton S. Silantiev

    (Department of Combustion and Explosion, N. N. Semenov Federal Research Center for Chemical Physics, Moscow 119991, Russia)

  • Ilias A. Sadykov

    (Department of Combustion and Explosion, N. N. Semenov Federal Research Center for Chemical Physics, Moscow 119991, Russia)

  • Fedor S. Frolov

    (Department of Combustion and Explosion, N. N. Semenov Federal Research Center for Chemical Physics, Moscow 119991, Russia)

  • Jaroslav K. Hasiak

    (A. N. Nesmeyanov Institute of Organoelement Compounds of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991, Russia)

  • Alexey A. Shiryaev

    (JSC South Ural Specialized Recycling Center, Miass 456313, Russia)

  • Vladimir E. Sitnikov

    (JSC South Ural Specialized Recycling Center, Miass 456313, Russia)

Abstract

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are the main components of e-waste. In order to reduce the negative impact of waste PCBs on human health and the environment, they must be properly disposed of. A new method is demonstrated for recycling waste PCBs. It is referred to as the high-temperature thermo-mechano-chemical gasification (TMCG) of PCBs by the detonation-born gasification agent (GA), which is a blend of H 2 O and CO 2 heated to a temperature above 2000 °C. The GA is produced in a pulsed detonation gun (PDG) operating on a near-stoichiometric methane–oxygen mixture. The PDG operates in a pulsed mode producing pulsed supersonic jets of GA and pulsed shock waves possessing a huge destructive power. When the PDG is attached to a compact flow reactor filled with waste PCBs, the PCBs are subject to the intense thermo-mechano-chemical action of both strong shock waves and high-temperature supersonic jets of GA in powerful vortical structures established in the flow reactor. The shock waves grind waste PCBs into fine particles, which undergo repeated involvement and gasification in the high-temperature vortical structures of the GA. Demonstration experiments show full (above 98%) gasification of the 1 kg batch of organic matter in a setup operation time of less than 350 s. The gaseous products of PCB gasification are mainly composed of CO 2 , CO, H 2 , N 2 , and CH 4 , with the share of flammable gas components reaching about 45 vol%. The solid residues appear in the form of fine powder with visible metal inclusions of different sizes. All particles in the powder freed from the visible metal inclusions possess a size less than 300–400 μm, including a large fraction of sizes less than 100 μm. The powder contains Sn, Pb, Cu, Ni, Fe, In, Cd, Zn, Ca, Si, Al, Ti, Ni, and Cl. Among these substances, Sn (10–20 wt%), Pb (5–10 wt%), and Cu (up to 1.5 wt%) are detected in the maximum amounts. In the powder submitted for analysis, precious elements Ag, Au, and Pt are not detected. Some solid mass (about 20 wt% of the processed PCBs) is removed from the flow reactor with the escaping gas and is partly (about 10 wt%) trapped by the cyclones in the exhaust cleaning system. Metal inclusions of all visible sizes accumulate only in the flow reactor and are not detected in powder samples extracted from the cyclones. The gasification degree of the solid residues extracted from the cyclones ranges from 76 to 91 wt%, i.e., they are gasified only partly. This problem will be eliminated in future work.

Suggested Citation

  • Sergey M. Frolov & Viktor A. Smetanyuk & Anton S. Silantiev & Ilias A. Sadykov & Fedor S. Frolov & Jaroslav K. Hasiak & Alexey A. Shiryaev & Vladimir E. Sitnikov, 2024. "Thermo-Mechano-Chemical Processing of Printed Circuit Boards for Organic Fraction Removal," Waste, MDPI, vol. 2(2), pages 1-16, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jwaste:v:2:y:2024:i:2:p:9-168:d:1375713
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2813-0391/2/2/9/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2813-0391/2/2/9/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pietro Romano & Emanuele Melchiorre & Francesco Vegliò, 2023. "ASPEN PLUS Predictive Simulation of Printed Circuit Boards Pyrolysis and Steam Gasification for Organic Fraction Valorization," Waste, MDPI, vol. 1(1), pages 1-12, January.
    2. Zhang, Shangzhong & Yoshikawa, Kunio & Nakagome, Hideki & Kamo, Tohru, 2013. "Kinetics of the steam gasification of a phenolic circuit board in the presence of carbonates," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 815-821.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sahu, Pradeep & Vairakannu, Prabu, 2023. "CO2 based co-gasification of printed circuit board with high ash coal," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 263(PE).
    2. Evangelopoulos, Panagiotis & Kantarelis, Efthymios & Yang, Weihong, 2017. "Experimental investigation of the influence of reaction atmosphere on the pyrolysis of printed circuit boards," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 1065-1073.
    3. Li, Jun & Xie, Yingpu & Zeng, Kuo & Flamant, Gilles & Yang, Haiping & Yang, Xinyi & Zhong, Dian & Du, Zhenyi & Chen, Hanping, 2020. "Biomass gasification in molten salt for syngas production," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jwaste:v:2:y:2024:i:2:p:9-168:d:1375713. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.