Recycling of printed circuit boards of obsolete desktops computers through hydrometalurgical processes
Recycling, PCB, hydrometallurgical processes.
The printed circuit boards (PCB) of the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) contain heavy metals (lead, cadmium, etc.) and flame retardants (brominated, chlorinated, etc.) which are hazardous to the environment and to human health. In addition, they are formed by base metals (copper, tin, etc.) and precious metals (silver, gold, etc.) which are valuable materials. Therefore, this type of waste needs to be managed through solutions that are environmentally sustainable and economically innovative and viable. That said, this research project aims to recycle different polymer, metal and ceramic materials from the PCB of the obsolete desktop computers through hydrometallurgical processes. For this, a depolymerization route should be initially optimized to recover the epoxy resin present in the PCI previously pulverized. In the same way, one or more leaching routes should be optimized to sequentially separate the different existing metals, and consequently the remaining glass fiber. In parallel, an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) characterization methodology should be developed to determine the elemental chemical composition of aqueous solutions previously precipitated that was also developed through an exclusive methodology. Further, distillations and liquid-liquid extractions should also be performed to assist the global recycling process. Finally, one of the recycled metals (copper, tin or silver) should be used to synthesize some nanostructured material of interest.