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New Technique for Recycling PCBs
MattSparkes writes "PCBs from discarded computers, cellphones and other devices could be recycled less harmfully using a technique developed by researchers in China. Unlike current methods, it can be used to reclaim metals such as copper without releasing toxic fumes into the air. Only a small numbers of PCBs are currently recycled."
I wish we had more PCBs around to discover things about. Guess we sent all our PCBs to China.
They want to compact & use the non-metallic parts as building materials.
This raises the question: Will there still be toxins in these compacted objects? And will they come out when the structure is eventually demolished?
Even concrete has all kinds of nasty that leeches out when you turn it into a pile of rubble.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Dude, this process creates more global warming!
-FL
R remember reading something years ago on /. as well as a few other sites.
The majority of the dust that appears on the surface of a PCB board (especially particular mainboards) are as bad if not more than asbestos.
If that isn't as tinfoil hat enough for you, this is another fucked up thing I read. There is a chemical that the PCB board is dipped in a few times throuought the process of making the boards layers and that chemical is what causes that type of dust to be created on the surface of the PCB-- but, they could have as easily been using a non-toxic fluid that would have been less expensive and not created the toxic 'dust' strands.
I, myself being a computer tech at random computer stores since I was 14, I found it to be a fucked up reading experience considering that I had my hands in it all day long and I at least remember reading it since the age of 17, several times.
someone recycling PHB's. Preferably into something useful.
Only a small numbers of PCBs are currently recycled.
Large quantities are being shipped to China for stripping of components and recovery of the copper. Especially now the copper price is so high. So I don't believe just a small number is being recycled - in the USA maybe, but not world wide!
Wouter.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We will be mining the landfills as soon as it becomes economically feasible. I think this will happen within a decade or so. They're full of tons of stuff we threw away before extracting all of the usefulness. It's metal-rich sludge full of useful organic matter to power the nanodigesters (or whatever we have to invent).
Not that you shouldn't recycle your aluminum and steel cans today.
It would be nice if we could just keep polychlorinated biphenyls out of the environment in the first place.
You act as if AO is a new thing.
I'm currently trying to make sense of the WEEE regulations. UK businesses that supply electronic products are required to register with a waste collection and recycling scheme by the 15th of march if they fall into vaguely defined categories covering most consumer products and some other stuff. A few months after that suppliers have to start taking back unwanted electronics.
The intention is the push the costs of disposal back to the manufacturer.
A director of a UK manufacturing company told me recently that the extra costs for him amount to 18% of turnover for no practical benefit.
It seems to be a full employment scheme for lawyers and beaurocrats. After reading lots of conflicting information on the web I tried reading the act of parliament that implements the European directive and was even more confused and outraged afterwards.
I'm sure there are lots of cases where people can argue over whether their product falss into the vaguely defined categories.
This is on top of CE marking, EMC, and ROHS. I'v seen companys discontinue products because it is just not worth the cost of redesigning to not use lead solder and other non-rohs stuff. With WEEE on top niche market electronics manufacturers just took a big hit.
Consideirng how easy it is to buy very very cheap, non-CE marked electronics direct from Hong Kong via ebay I worry about whats left of UK electronics manufacturing. It's been decimated by pacific rim competition over the last ten years already.
I think that while finding new ways to recycle old computer parts and PCBs is still a good idea, educating the public about how and where to take their old computer parts is probably money equally well spent. I know that I have often just tossed old computer cards and whatnot that I would have preferrably recycled, for a simple lack of knowledge as to where to take them.
Hey, guys. Big gulps, huh? Cool. All right! Well, see ya later.
Sure, we can mash up some circuit boards and make something. Burning them is silly. I would rather smoke crack than PVC.
This reminds me of a story I heard about printing circuits on a sheet of pasta.
Pasta PCB
Once the protective coating is removed, the board quickly biodegrades, and the ICs and metal coatings can be easily reclaimed.
And here's a Pretty pasta picture
Here's a choice quote:
Why not feed the waste into a high-temperature furnace, like those used to rip apart toxic chemical compounds into more benign elements and compounds?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
As usual, no acronym may ever be expanded, nor definition given, nor even enough info to get a clue, in a Slashdot story summary. The summary needs to somehow clarify that we are discussing Printed Circuit Boards, and not PolyChlorinated Biphenyls. Really big difference, and both are environmental/technological issues, but orders of magnitude different in impact.
www.wavefront-av.com
It would be great to extract the metals and save the plastic with tracings, then we can make computer cases, notepad covers, desk veneers, and other office supplies out of it.
stuff |
People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.
I first read that as 'Recycling PHBs' ... now that is something I would REALLY like to see, because lord knows I need a new boss!
The Chinese university method does not seem particularly new, and not particularly good for the environment. It seems to involve very intensive shredding and pulverizing processes, using an enormous amount of energy, to mechanically convert circuit boards into particles so minute that metal and non-metal, tightly bonded together in the board, can be separated by further mechanical processing. The production of pure metals using such processes is, in laboratory settings, theoretically possible, but it would be enormously expensive, and the use of energy, presumably supplied by the coal-fired Chinese electrical infrastructure, would emit metals (e.g. mercury, beryllium) in large amounts, in addition to carbon dioxide. A well controlled copper smelter - and there are a few - followed by refining processes, is likely to be much more efficient and less polluting over a broad environmental view, as well as productive of more metal recovery.
I dont think printed circuit boards should be allowed to use the acronym PCB, its way too confusing. I just circulated this article to about 20 different experts and journals thinking they were talking about poly-chlorinated bi-phenyls.
What?! I read slashdot, did you really expect me to RFA?!?!
...and it should be known by now
It didn't say this is THE environment friendly way to treat PCBs. But combined with other methods, it could prove more effective. Note this is only research, not meant to be all-encompass solution.
Your argument about the Chinese energy infrastructure is valid though. The reality is China has large coal reserve but not a lot of oil. Now researches are being done to turn coal into oil. I hope development in such fields will one day benefit us all.
People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.
I thought it said "New Technique for Recycling PHBs".
Nothing new. This was used in some Canadian computer recycling a few years ago. You shop the crap out of it, then you can use magnetic field (magnets) and electric fields to separate different types of metals and non-metals. The Chinese technique is not that much "new".
I didn't know that Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) were used in computers. Or that they could be recycled. We have a big PCB problem in our bay.
Gee, and I thought this would be an interesting article on how one could get rid of those nasty Poly Chlorinated Biphenyls from old transformers.
People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.
Some who like China also talk of Tiananmen Square, as well as how 2 million Nationists Chinese led by Chiang Kai-shek invaded and subjegated 20 million on the island called Formosa, meaning "beautiful island", by the Portuguese but now called Taiwan. After the invasion Formosans had their own version of the Holocaust, 28 February 1947, which led to the massive slaughter of thousands of Taiwanese at the hands of Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese troops. Both sides in China have a bloody history.
Also, did you know Mao and Chiang and got started in the same political party? They both were members of Sun Yat-sen's Nationalist Party. They were also related by marriage to each other. Both married daughters of the Soong family.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Me too, but most with regard to all of the barely used nuclear fuel rods languishing at reactors all over the country. There's a ton of energy left in them, and by burning up the actinides you're left with waste that's 'hot' for a faction of the time.
IEEE's magazine "Spectrum" has a good article on this, dealing with France's Nuclear Wasteland . The article also points out the problems with reprocessing.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Get your facts straight first if you want convince people you actually know what you're talking about.
I did not provide any facts I didn't include a link to where I got the data.
The population of Taiwan IS about 23 million at the moment, minus 2 million mainland immigrants - that's 1 million. Are you saying after 60 some years since Japan handed back Taiwan to Chiang's government after WWII, the net population growth is only 1 million?
Secondly, nowhere did I give any numbers other than "thousands" or "28 February 1947", so you're wrong if you think I said anything about Taiwan's net population growth. Can you please point out where you get the impression I did say it?
If the KMT government was so bad as to cause the population stop growing, how come its economy took off and became one of the Asian Dragons, together with Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore, since the 80s?
Notice the respective dates: 28 Febuary 1947 and 1980s. The first is more than 30 year before the second. A lot can happen in 30 years.
I'm not trying to explain the whole thing here. It's so much more than what can be explained in a post. What I'm trying to do is to ask you to refrain from making moral judgement based on one-sided statements. History has much more than that.
The only tyme I made a moral judgement was when I said "Both sides in China have a bloody history." Saying both sides were bloody IS NOT one sided. Can you point out where anywhere else I made a moral judgement?
The other thing I'd like to point out here is that Mao and Chiang are not related by marriage. Mao is married to Jiang Qing. Chiang's wife was Soong May-ling. Sun Yat-sen, on the other hand, did marry Soong May-ling's big sister Soong Ching-ling.
You may have me here, I thought I read somewhere where Mao had married a Soong daughter. But after reading your post I googled and didn't find anything about him marrying a Soong as well, only that he had 4 wives, Yang Kaihui, He Zizhen, and Jiang Qing being the fourth. So in this at least, thanks for the correction.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It's no mystery that circuit boards are produced by soldering the pieces together. If the parts can be soldered they can certainly be de-soldered as well. Instead of smashing the pieces, why not just slowly heat the boards to the point at which the solder liquifies and then vibrate them to free up the pieces. If the boards could tolerate the heat during production then obviously they can tolerate the same heat in dissassembly without burning.
Once the various capacitors, chips, connectors and such are separated from the boards they could be much more easily further processed and perhaps in some cases certain parts could even be re-used as is. The solder itself could almost certainly be reclaimed. The premise that the best first step is to either crush or burn the components seems poorly thought out.
Now I realize that the majority of the components cannot be directly re-used in an economic manner. Most of the waste is most likely either seriously outdated or already damaged to begin with but by first removing all the soldered components it would be far more efficient to concentrate like materials into dense bundles for further processing in a more efficient manner.