Authors: Tatariants Maksym, Yousef Samy
Guides: Denafas Gintaras, Bendikienė Regita
Description:
This work aims to separate all elements of Waste Printed Circuit Boards (WPCBs) (PC Video card) by using organic solvent di-methyl formamide (DMF) and ultrasonic treatment applied to raw material placed inside reaction chamber at lower temperatures (50°C). In the beginning, experiments were conducted on powder and small pieces (100 mm2) of WPCBs in order to determine the optimum conditions, then obtained data were used in the separation of video card by cleaving the macromolecular reticulate structure of brominated epoxy resin (BER). Thus, dissolution of BER was performed, copper foils and woven glass fiber layers were separated. Also, rotary decompression evaporator was used to regenerate used DMF and extract BER. Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, metallographic microscope, and EDS were used to examine the recovered BER and fiberglass structure and main metal composition of each sample. The results showed that the developed approach is more efficient for the countries having a hot climate because the developed technique doesn’t need a high heating rate since the used temperature was 50°C. Also, it was determined that video card PCB consists of 10 woven glass fiber layers (6 substrate layers and 4 isolating layers), copper, aluminum, lead, tin, and BER.
