Electronic Waste

10Processing of Nonmetal Fraction from Printed Circuit Boards and Reutilization

Amit Kumar and Maria E. Holuszko

University of British Columbia, NBK Institute of Mining Engineering, 6350, Stores Road, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada

10.1 Background

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are the most important and valuable building block of electronic equipment. It is the platform that provides connections for all other electronic components such as resistors, capacitors, diodes, memory, and processors (Awasthi et al. 2017; Ghosh et al. 2015; Ning et al. 2017). With the development of newer technologies, the printed circuit board market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 4.3% from 2019 to 2014 and expected to reach an estimated US$ 89.7 billion by 2024 (Research and Markets 2019).

The percentage weight of PCB in an electronic device depends on the type of unit and can vary from 2% to 22% (Szałatkiewicz 2013). On average, PCB accounts for 3–6% (by weight) of the total e-waste (Das et al. 2009; Ghosh et al. 2015; Golev et al. 2019; Golev et al. 2016; Ning et al. 2017; Szałatkiewicz 2014a). With the metal concentration of 30–35% in PCB, it contains 40–80% of the total estimated value of waste PCB (Awasthi et al. 2017; Golev and Corder 2017; Golev et al. 2019; Park and Fray 2009). Although with a relatively smaller fraction by weight, waste PCB accounts for ∼US$ 150 million per year of the total metal recovery value in e-waste that provides a major incentive for recycling ...