Unit-V
E-Waste Recycling
Dr. M. Ankush Kumar,
Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering,
SVKM’s Institute of Technology, Dhule.
▪ E-waste consists of materials that can be recovered and reused
in the manufacturing process.
Resource
recovery
potential of
e-waste
Contd.
Contd.
▪ Efficient collecting mechanisms coupled with appropriate
equipment and technology inventions will help in improving the
business profitability and quality of life of workers, who are the
pat of the recycling chain.
Steps in
recycling and
recovery of
materials ▪ Collection
▪ Dismantling
▪ Mechanical processing
▪ Metal extraction
▪ The obsolete electrical and electronic equipment from the
individual households, companies and institutions are collected
by the individuals.
▪ The waste collected is segregated under five categories as
follows:
Collection ▪ Household white goods and automatic dispensing machines
▪ Cooling equipment
▪ IT and telecommunication
▪ Glow discharge lamps and
▪ Small household appliances
Contd.
▪ Collection also refers to transportation of waste to collecting
centres and storage at recycling centres.
▪ Dismantling is carried out either manually for disassembling
and separation of the useful items.
Dismantling ▪ Or through highly mechanized process for efficient material
separation.
Contd.
▪ As e-waste is mix of substances, it is characterized by
heterogeneity.
▪ During this stage adequate care must be taken for achieving
high recycling targets.
▪ The following hazardous components needs to removed before
processing:
Mechanical ▪ Capacitors
▪ Printed circuit boards
Processing ▪ Cathode Ray Tubes
▪ Toner cartridges
▪ Mercury switches
▪ Batteries
▪ Plastics with flame retardants and
▪ Fluorescent lamps
Contd.
Contd.
▪ After the separation of components, hazardous and reusable, the
electronic components are undergo the mechanical processing.
▪ This process involves grinding and shredding, which reduced
the particle size.
▪ The next stage separates the ferrous materials based on
Contd. magnetic properties.
▪ Non ferrous materials using eddy current and air table.
▪ The processing results in the separation of metals, plastics and
dust.
▪ Components of CRT:
▪ Four different types of glass are available in CRT:
Glass ▪ Panel glass – Higher concentrations of barium and strontium.
▪ Neck glass – 40% Lead oxide
Recovery from ▪ Funnel glass - 25% Lead
CRT ▪ Solder glass – up to 85% Lead
▪ Dismantling:
▪ this is first process where glassy materials are separated from
metals and other non-glassy materials.
Steps involved ▪ Separation of glass fractions:
in glass ▪ Separation of panel glass and funnel glass is a critical step in CRT
extraction recycling. This is achieved either manually or by using automated
machines.
▪ Splitting of CRT by heating wire is the most common method.
▪ In this method, the joint between panel and funnel glass is split
by wrapping the wire around the CRT and heating it
electrically.
Contd.
▪ After spitting, the funnel glass is separated from the panel and
the shadow mask is removed, facilitating the removal of
phosphors coating.
Phosphors
coating
removal
▪ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPXdUbJqouI
Contd.
▪ As the CRT glass require high purity
and do not allow any contaminants, the
recycled glass should be devoid of
substances like Stickers, Metal and
Other non glass materials like graphite
Storage of and iron oxide layers.
▪ In addition to purity, maintaining the
recycled glass light transmission and color point
properties of recycled glass are
essential.
▪ There are two techniques used for the extraction of gold from
e-waste:
Gold Recovery ▪ Cyanide leaching process
from E-waste ▪ Mercury amalgamation
▪ This is a low cost process which involves reaction between
constituents like gold, oxygen, water and cyanide.
▪ Firstly, the waste material is immersed in in hot water in plastic
containers and leaching of the gold is facilitated by the addition
of potassium and sodium cyanide in the presence of oxidizing
conditions.
Cyanide
Leaching ▪ The leaching process is followed by sieving and washing: metal
is completely removed from waste.
▪ Separation of gold is carried out by mixing silver salt,
aluminium foil, precipitating the gold and silver.
Flow chart of
Cyanide
Leaching
▪ This process is based on the formation of amalgam of mercury
with gold, which results in separation of gold from other metals
and impurities.
▪ This is a less complicated process involving mercury, nitric acid
and sodium carbonate.
Mercury ▪ The processing time is 3 hours and the components such as the
Amalgamation joints of gold are filtered out from the gold pins and flakes.
▪ The filtered gold residues are mixed with mercury and few
drops of nitric acid, producing amalgam.
▪ The amalgam is filtered through cloth, producing a
concentrated gold lump.
Flow chart of
Mercury
Amalgamation
▪ The best available techniques for recovery of metals are:
▪ Mechanical process and
▪ Metallurgical process.
Best available ▪ Steps in Mechanical process are:
techniques for ▪ Dismantling
recovery of ▪ Shredding and
▪ Sorting.
metals from
▪ This process is based on physical and optical characteristics of
e-waste materials.
▪ Separation of metal and non-metal fractions is achieved from
this process.
▪ Metallurgical process is based on chemical and metallurgical
properties of metals.
▪ Three major steps of this process are:
▪ Extraction
▪ Separation and
Contd. ▪ Purification
▪ This is process results in recovery of metals like lead, copper,
nickel, tin, antimony, bismuth, silver, gold, platinum, palladium
and rhodium.
▪ The huge volume and weight of plastic materials is available in
waste components.
▪ It is necessary to explore economical and environmental
friendly solutions for recycling of plastic materials without
Recovery of altering their properties.
Plastics ▪ The challenge is with the separation of high value plastic from
the mixed plastic in e-waste.
▪ This is due to the presence of different types of brominated
flame retardants in the plastic stream.
▪ CreaSolv process is the methodology developed for the
recovery of polymer from waste plastics.
▪ The process is economical, safe and environment friendly and
results in high quality polymer.
▪ The process involves dissolving the main polymers (ABS or
Contd. PC) in organic solvents.
▪ The dissolved components are then separated from the insoluble
materials.
▪ The polymers are further extruded in injection moulding
processes, resulting in pure recycled polymers.
▪ This process is economical as the solvent can be recycled and
reused for dissolving of plastics.
▪ The process is efficient as it does not require any mechanical
Contd. processing such as grinding, and can be applied to direct plastic
materials after dismantling.
THANK
YOU
