Author(s): Hui Zhang, Chaoran Wang
Advisor(s): Jianyu Lian
Category: Graduate
Abstract: E-waste is considered a potential resource. However, the current e-waste recycling is only 17.4%. E-waste management and recycling are crucial to environmental sustainability and carbon emissions reduction. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are a valuable sub-system of e-waste. Although PCBs account for 3−6 wt.% of the total e-waste, they contain lots of valuable metals such as Cu, Zn, Ag, and Au, especially compared to natural ores. It was estimated that the cost of mining natural oral is nearly 7 times that of recycling PCBs to produce the same quality of Au, Ag, Cu, Al, and steel. However, the main used methods for PCBs treatment, landfill and pyrometallurgy, cause serious environmental and health concerns. Our objectives are: to create an efficient method to remove ECs from PCBs,
to recover critical materials from waste PCBs to minimize military logistic tail, to improve the environmental friendliness of the e-waste recycling process, and to enable the technology transfer to industry.
UN SDGs: SDG 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, SDG 15 – Life on Land
Video Presentation:
Poster Presentation: