Smelting Process for Printed Circuit Boards
Other People Are Reading
-
Recycling
-
A lot of concern has swirled in recent years about all of the electronic trash that's ultimately created by discarding old electronic equipment, due to constantly needing to upgrade computers, cell phones, and other technology. In order to conserve resources and to remain environmentally friendly, there has been a wave of effort, funding, and technology being put into recycling computers and other electronics. One of the most problematic sections, the printed circuit board contained in the equipment, has to be recycled through an old process that's been modified for new uses. It's called smelting.
Preparation
-
The first steps in the process are obviously to remove the printed circuit boards from whatever equipment they're a part of. Once the boards are removed they're stripped of removable components such as chips and additional memory. Once all of this is done, the circuit boards are broken into smaller pieces that can be more easily slagged. Then the broken pieces of circuit board are put through the smelting process, which means that the circuit boards are melted down into slag in order to remove the precious metals, such as gold, from the boards.
-
Smelting
-
The feed (the broken-down circuit boards) are fed into a blast furnace from a conveyor belt. As the boards themselves are melted, the precious metals are extracted during the melting process. Gold, copper, nickel, and other precious metals are drawn out of the circuit boards, which become slag during the smelting process. The precious metals, and toxic metals (such as lead and mercury) are drawn out of the slag, and then the slag itself is recycled to be used as a construction material. The metals that are extracted are then separated and resold to be used over again for new manufacturing.
-
