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Milling and Classification of the Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) for Material
Recycling

Article  in  Particulate Science And Technology · March 2013

DOI: 10.1080/02726351.2015.1020179

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 Milling and Classification of the Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) for
Material Recycling

C. Eswaraiaha,*, R.K. Sonib, R. Sakthivela

a
CSIR-Institute of Minerals & Materials Technology, Bhubaneswar-751 013, India
b
Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad-826 004, India

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................2

1. Introduction...............................................................................................................2

2. Materials and methods...............................................................................................5

2.1. Materials .............................................................................................................5

2.2. Methods ..............................................................................................................5

3. Results and discussion ...............................................................................................7

3.1. Size reduction & Liberation .................................................................................7

3.2. Air classification .................................................................................................8

3.2.1. Air flow rate measurements ..........................................................................9

3.2.2. Classification process ................................................................................. 10

3.2.3. Species/Components analysis...................................................................... 11

3.2.4. Separation efficiency .................................................................................. 12

4. Conclusions.............................................................................................................. 13

Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... 14

Nomenclature............................................................................................................... 14

References ................................................................................................................... 14

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-674-2379263; Fax: +91-674-2581637.

E-mail address: eswar_iitm@yahoo.co.in (Dr. C. Eswaraiah)

1
ABSTRACT

Recycling of waste electric and electronic equipment is an emerging issue due to its

hazardous nature as well as valuable materials associated with the waste. It is important

to identify the appropriate environment-friendly processes to recover valuables and safe

disposal of associated hazardous materials. In this work, two-stage crushing process is

employed to liberate the valuables and also to obtain the suitable fragment size

distribution. From the size reduction process, it is observed that the decrease in particle

size decreases the metal content. Thus, it is important to know the optimum particle size

for better liberation. This work deals with the separation of metals and plastics from the

milled PCBs using circulating air classifier. Size analysis of milled products and

fractions obtained from the air classifier were carried out. The amount of metals and

plastics present in each size fraction were estimated. It is concluded that the main metals

enriched was found to be in the size fraction of -1.6+0.5 mm. The optimum airflow rate

of 60 m3/h or say, optimum superficial airflow velocity 13160 m/h found to be the best

to recover the metal-rich fraction from mixture of PCBs. The presented work studies the

strategy for separation of metal rich and plastic material from e-waste for their safe and

hazardous free disposal, as some of the metals in e-waste such as Pb, As, Cd are

poisonous in nature.

Keywords: Printed circuit boards; crushing; air classification; waste treatment;

recycling

1. Introduction

2
 The robust growth of new technologies is producing short-lived electric/electronic

goods, which leads to the generation of obsolete waste in large scale. The generation of

e-waste is rapidly growing and therefore leading attraction towards the efficient

separation of its components and their safe disposal. These goods are brought destined

for landfills, incinerators or hazardous waste exports. (Kang and Schoenung, 2005; Lee

et al., 2007; Zhang and Forssberg, 1999; Cui and Forssberg, 2007; Bi et al., 2007; Wang

et al., 2005). According to Bertram et al. (2002), the generation of waste electric and

electronic equipments (WEEE) is around 7 kg per capita per annum in Europe. It is

reported that the amount of waste expected to increase by at least 3–5% per annum (Cui

and Forssberg, 2003). The usual compositions of PCBs are non-metals such as epoxy,

glass fiber and resin greater than 70%, Copper 17%, solder 4%, iron and ferrite 3%,

nickel 2% and other metals less than 1% (Goosey and Krishnan, 2003). The recycling of

electric/electronic waste is difficult as the PCBs is hard to pulverize (Kinoshita et al.,

2003). Therefore, most of the PCBs waste has been disposed as landfill dumps. Various

chemical processes have been investigated with the reagents such as aquaregia, tetra-

bromo ethane (Zong et al., 2002). Furthermore, the chemical processes generate

hazardous waste, which requires additional treatment before disposal. Since, the most of

the chemical processes are not environment friendly and economically viable, Some

other processes of recycling of printed circuit boards use pyrometallurgical (Felix and

Riet, 1994; Shichang et al., 1994) or hydro-metallurgical routes (Gloe et al., 1990; Pozzo

et al., 1991; Marca et al., 2002), which again generates atmospheric pollution through

the release of dioxins and furans or high volumes of effluents (Menad et al., 1998).

Mechanical physical and chemical methods are two traditional recycling processes

for waste PCBs. Chemical methods mainly include pyrolysis, combustion, hydration,

3
and electrolysis. The major waste of PCBs is processed in backyards or small workshops

using primary methods such as open burning and acid washing (Guo et al., 2010). The

pyrometallurgical and combustion route generates atmospheric pollution through the

release of dioxins and furans (Leung et al., 2007; Wong et al., 2007).

During the recycling process of hydration and electrolysis, large quantity of waste

acid liquid is produced, which needs to be treated carefully before disposal (Li et al.,

2007). On the other hand, in China the fluid bed separation technology is widely used in

recycling of waste PCBs due to the lack of effective technologies (Huang et al., 2009).

Huge amounts of wastewater get generated during the process, which may contain heavy

metals leading to more serious secondary pollution without proper treatment. However

recently, mechanical processing of PCBs gradually focused on to recover the valuables

associated therein (Eswaraiah et al., 2008; Das et al., 2009; Hall and Williams, 2007;

Veit et al., 2005). Some studies reported that the mechanical processing (Zhang and

Forssberg, 1997; Veit et al., 2002; Veit et al., 2006) is as an alternative process to

concentrate the metals in one fraction, and the polymers, ceramics in another. Moreover,

the metal concentrated fraction can be used to electrochemical processes (Scott et al.,

1997; Kekesi et al., 2000; Ubaldini et al., 2003) in order to separate the metals among

themselves. Mechanical process is mainly used for recycling of PCBs scrap because it

can yield maximum material recovery, including plastics (Jarring and Forssberg, 2003).

Recently, the recovery of metals and nonmetals from pulverized PCBs by corona

electrostatic separation (CES) based on the extreme differences in density and electric

conductivity of metallic and nonmetallic materials, has been introduced (Wu et al.,

2008). In addition, studies have been reported that the metallic components from waste

printed circuit boards were enriched by using a zig-zag classifier (Yoo et al., 2009).

4
Recent studies have demonstrated the feasibility of copper recovery through vacuum

pyrolysis and mechanical processing for recycling of waste printed circuit boards (Song

et al., 2010; Guo et al., 2011). The present work focused on to develop an environment-

friendly recycling process for separation of metals and plastics from the PCB scrap and

their utilization in appropriate applications.

2 Materials and methods

2.1 Materials

The metals and plastics in PCBs are present in an embedded form. Therefore, an

efficient size reduction process is necessary for liberating metals from the plastics.

Around 50 kg of waste PCBs was separated manually from the old obsolete personal

computers. The material is first broken into smaller pieces using power hammer and

mechanical shearing machine followed by two stage crushing process. The crusher

product was used as feed material for air classification process to separate the metals and

plastics.

2.2. Methods

In this work, the Hazemag impact crusher, hammer mill and air classifier were used

for milling and classification of PCBs. Initially, 50 kg of PCBs were broken into small

pieces by power hammers and mechanical shearing machine. As mentioned in preceding

paragraph, the amount of sample was subjected to the Hazemag impact crusher that has

given the 80% passing size (d80) passing size as 8 mm which was too course to be

analyzed for metal liberation. A snapshot of used Hazamag crusher is shown in Fig. 1.

Eswaraiah et al. (2008) can be referred for the similar size reduction process. with small

5
changes such as replacement of primary crushing stage of hand cutting with the

Hazamag crusher in this work and the variation in sieve sizes that were used for size

distribution analysis. In Hazemag impact crusher, the samples are broken by the impact

of swinging hammers. The crusher has the provision to change the variables such as gap

width, rpm and feed rate. The experiments were carried out at different crusher

parameters to obtain the better product at preliminary stage of comminution. Further, the

Hazemag crusher product was subjected to hammer mill for size reduction to achieve the

better liberation and required size for air classification process to separate metal rich and

the metal lean fractions.

Metal rich and metal lean products of the hammer mill were analyzed with the sink-

float test for the amount of metals and non-metals in them collectively, irrespective of

the type of metal or non-metal present. Sink-float analysis separates the components of a

mixture in multiple fractions according to differences in their densities, a detailed

description of Sink-float analysis especially in concurrence with present work therefore

with possibly similar densities can be found in Eswaraiah et al. (2008). Each product

fractions of sink-float test was dissolved one by one in HNO3 solution to account the Comment [RKS1]: present concentration and
other things related to sink float analysis/
What were the durations of sink float
weightage of metals present in fraction. Paper also details the procedure of subsequent test, dense media used in that, and
solid liquid ratio (or relative amoun
of solid required) for preparation of
stage of present work therefore determination of individual metals in the different medium? What were the densities of
solution taken?

density fraction with the technique of component/species analysis therefore Atomic

Absorption Spectrometry (AAS).

Air classification is an important unit operation for the separation of dispersed solid

particles based on their difference in size and density. The detailed description of design

of air classifier and its methodology can be referred from Eswaraiah et al. (2008). AAS Comment [RKS2]: how aas was used. give som
detail.

was again used for the determination of total amount of metal present in the

6
classification product metal rich and metal lean fractions, and the variation in collective

metal amount in the metal rich fraction was analyzed against the changes in airflow.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Size reduction & Liberation

Particle size distributions of the PCBs product resulted from the primary Hazemag Comment [RKS3]: mention the sieve sizes for
each step at appropriate places

impact crusher was analyzed and found distribution is shown in Fig. 2. The sieves used

for the sieve analysis were having the sizes of 125, 211, 420, 600, 1000, 1400, 1980, Comment [R4]: Please check whether all the
sizes are available in practice.

2800, 3960, 5600, 7920, 11200 µm. It was observed that the d80 passing product size is

insensitive with respect to the rpm and gap width. However, the product size influenced

more by the crusher feed rate in comparison with the other variables. The d80 passing Comment [RKS5]: what were the values of fee
rates. and how it varied

size of the product from Hazemag crusher was found to be 8 mm, which indicates that

the product size distribution could not have well liberated metals at this stage of

crushing. The product from the Hazemag crusher at optimized conditions were subjected Comment [RKS6]: what are this optimized
conditions?

to hammer milling for further size reduction to achieve the better liberation

characteristics.

The product of the Hazemag impact crusher was fed into the hammer mill for

maximizing the liberation characteristics of metals and plastics. A schematic diagram of

hammer mill is shown in Fig. 3. The hammer mill gives the highest throughput rate due

to an optimum number of beaters, large effective sieving surfaces or grate gaps and full

utilization of the grinding chamber. The collection chamber is detachable from the metal

frame, which was clipped with the bag to the downside of the mill, and serves as the

dual purpose of product collector and as well as air filters. The ground product was

collected from the hammer mill in the collection chamber. The milled products were

7
subjected to sieve analysis to determine the required size for subsequent air

classification process. A comparison of the product size distribution obtained at

optimized conditions of Hazemag crusher and hammer mill is shown in Fig. 4. It is Comment [R7]: What are optimized conditions

observed that the d80 passing size found to be 8 mm and 1.7 mm in Hazemag crusher and

hammer mill respectively.

The hammer milled product size distribution at different feed rates inferred that, as

the milling rate increases the residence time of particles in the mill decreases which in

turn reduces the relative weightage of broken particles towards lower sizes, as shown in

Fig. 5. The probability of particles being exposed to size reduction process decreases

with an increase in milling rate, which This consequently increases the d80 passing size

of milled product. In addition, it was observed that the variation in the milling rate is

significant up to certain feed rate after that there was no effect of feed rate. Therefore,

the variation in d80 of product is very small as evident in Fig. 5. The hammer-milled

products obtained at optimised conditions were analysed for size and species

distribution. The component analysis indicated that metals are mainly enriched in the

size range of -1.6+1 mm and -1+0.5 mm size fractions. The grades of the metal

enrichment of the above two size fractions were found to be 29.5% and 61.5%

respectively. Though the yield of the crushed product in the size fraction of -2+0.5 mm

was 55.38%, it covered the 80.81% metals of the total comminuted product. From this, it

is also concluded that the prime metal rich fraction of comminuted product was in size

range of -1.6+0.5 mm.

3.2. Air classification

A snapshot as well as the schematic diagram of a circulating air classifier used in

8
the present study to classify the metal rich and metal lean fraction is shown in Fig. 6.

The air classifier used in the present work is different in its design from the design used

in Eswaraiah et al. (2008). In the Eswaraiah et al. (2008), the concentration of study is

on the column classifier that requires an external blower to flow the air inside the

classifier while in the present study, the fan in combination with vanes in the classifier

take the air-in through the air inlet section (as shown in the schematic line diagram of a

circulating air classifier) which creates an upward flow for the lighter or plastic materials

and subsequently, these lighter particles come out with the air from air outlet section.

While the heavier metal particles remain in the inner concentric cylinder and slowly

comes out from the air inlet section. An air classifier can be controlled and moderated by

several parameters such as airflow rate, vane designs, material feed rate and speed of

rotating guiding vanes etc.

3.2.1. Air flow rate measurements

Prior to the air classification experiments, measurement of airflow rates at different

rotational wheel speeds and different guide vane angles were carried out. Angular and

radial vane configurations were considered for the measurement of air flow rate. These Comment [R8]: Put the table regarding air flow
rate measurement from the PhD thesis here.

were measured with the help of two techniques; a turbine flow meter and a traversing

pitot tube connected to the micro-manometer were used. The measurements were carried

out at the air outlet section, and then converted into superficial air flow rates according

to equation 1.

Vs  V f A ….(1)

where Vs is the converted superficial air flow velocity, V f is air flow rate measured

from pitot tube or turbine flow meter, and A is the cross sectional area of the classifier

9
outlet cross-section. In the present study, the classifier used is having the cross-sectional

diameter equal to 3 inch; and therefore is calculates the cross-sectional area equal

to 4.56e(3) .

Velocity profiles obtained from pitot tube was nearly axi-symmetric and a typical Comment [RKS9]: provide evidence

turbulent-like velocity profile was found. The flow rate measurements were carried out

over a range of wheel speeds, and the results obtained and compared are shown in Fig.

7. It is observed that there is a great variation in airflow rate as well as in the

recirculation pattern with respect to the stationary bottom vane configurations such as

angular and radial vanes. This difference in flow rate and recirculation plays an

important role while separating metals and plastics.

3.2.2. Classification process

A circulating air classifier separates particulate mixtures by utilizing the differences

in terminal falling velocities of the material, in the air. The solid mixture to be separated

was fed into a stream of upward moving air; the solid particles were carried along or

settled against the air stream with respect to the difference between the superficial air

velocity and their settling velocity. The particles experience centrifugal, gravity and drag

forces according to the intensity of the force field.

The optimum airflow rate required to separate metal lean and metal-rich fraction is

studied by using circulating air classifier. To find the optimum airflow rate for the

separation of metal-rich fraction, experiments were conducted at five different airflow

rates such as 30, 50, 60, 70, and 80 m3/h (or superficial air flow velocities such as 6580,

10970, 13160, 15350 and 17540 m/h, respectively). Further, classification products were

subjected to sieve analysis and subsequently determined the percentage metal content. Comment [RKS10]: mention size of sieves

The effect of airflow rate on percent metal content inferred that the metal found
10
maximum for the superficial air flow velocity of 13160 m/h. Further increase in flow

rate decreases the metal values as evident in Fig. 8. When the superficial air flow

velocity is maintained at 13160 m/h, the metals rich collected at the side bottom

contained 78.41% metal and the loss of metal content was around 8%. Further, the

increase of superficial air flow velocity to 17540 m/h (or 80 m3/h of air flow rate) caused

some of metal rich particles reported to metal lean fraction. At higher flow rate, the

metal concentration in the underflow of heavy particles is around 11.5% only; which

gives an indication that the optimum superficial air flow velocity could be below 17540

m/h. It is also observed from the experiments that the separation is impossible at very

low flow rates as well as at very high flow rates. The misplacements observed is due to

the entrainment of smaller size metal particles carried along with the larger size plastic

particles. However, the small amount of misplacement of metals in plastics as well as

plastics in metals may be there all the time. Entrainment of particles may be mainly due

to the bypass of airflow within the classifier.

3.2.3. Species/Components analysis

In this work, the estimation of metals and plastics present in various size fractions were

carried out by adopting the sink-float method using HNO3 solution as sink-float media. Comment [RKS11]: 8. What were the
durations of sink float test, dense
media used in that, and
The differential distribution of the metals in the hammer milled PCBs revealed that 80% solid liquid ratio (or relative amoun
of solid required) for prepation of
medium? What were the densties of
of the total liberated metal lies in the population of particle size between 1600 μm and solution taken?
9. What was the concentration of HNO3
How the metals who does not dissolve
500 μm, whereas float fractions predominate at lower particle sizes as evident in Fig. 9. in
HNO3 were handles?

It was also observed that the liberation of metals and plastics occurred at particle size

below 1200 μm. The visual analysis shows that the sink-float method is an effective

method to determine the amount of metals and plastics present in the printed circuit

11
boards. The similar pattern of distribution was observed for all hammer milling

conditions. The metal particles did not take part in complete breakage because they were

not as brittle as epoxy resin and glass.

The results of the acid dissolution analysis of PCBs of various fractions obtained

from hammer mill shows that the most of the metal contents were concentrated in the

coarser fraction. As mentioned earlier, this may be due to metal particles did not

participate in the complete breakage. The metal content presented in below 500 μm

fraction was considerably less. It is evident that the metal content presented below 63

m size fraction is almost negligible. And as the particle size decreased up to 150 m,

plastic content present in the sample increased and after that the plastic content

decreased rapidly. This may be due to the large amount of glass fiber and ceramics

present at the finer size fraction. Glass fiber and ceramic powder of this size fraction

could be used as filler materials.

3.2.4. Separation efficiency

The optimum superficial air flow velocity for maximum metal recovery is found to

be 13160 m/h. Further, increase in flow rate leads to an increased amount of metal

content in the metal lean fraction as misplacement along with the air. The high-flow rate

increases upward air velocity, which results in heavier fraction reported to the other side.

The flow rate required for separation of metal rich and lean fraction is very high. This is

due to varying metal densities and unequal settling properties of the particles.

At a high-superficial air flow velocity (17540 m/h), there was no metal content

present in the coarse fraction in the particle size below 500 μm. At this flow rate, large

amounts of below 500 μm particles were reported to the fine fraction and remaining

12
particles were collected at the coarse fraction. It was observed that at higher flow rate,

the metal concentration was more in the fine fraction of the classifier. This might be

explained as smaller size metal particles carried along with the larger size plastic

particles. The air classification mainly depends upon the size and density of the particle.

The separation is easier for particle size around 1000 μm. Despite some losses in metal

content, air classifier is operated at 13160 m/h which led to the optimal efficiency for the

metal-rich product. The results quantitatively demonstrate the opposing role played by

density and size of the particles in separation.

4. Conclusions

The liberation is the core process in mechanical pre-treatment process. From the

analysis, it is observed that the decrease in particle size decrease the metal content due to

reduced tendency of metals to take part in comminution at lower sizes. Thus, it is

important to know the optimum particle size for better liberation. It is concluded that the

main metal enrichment was found to be in the size fraction of -1.6+0.5 mm. In the

present work, the angular vane configuration at 30˚ as shown in fig. 10, was considered

for air classification experiments because it helps preventing the heavier metallic particle

to misplace in lighter fraction. The airflow rate is one of the crucial parameter in

classification process to separate the metal rich and lean fractions. The optimum

superficial air flow velocity of 13160 m/h facilitates the high recovery of metal-rich

fraction from the mixture of PCBs. This study successfully demonstrates the strategy for

material recycling from PCBs. In this approach, the size reduction followed by air

classification resulted in better separation of metal rich and metal lean fraction. The

obtained metal-rich fraction could be effectively used as a feed material for selective

13
recovery of valuable metals from the PCBs waste.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to acknowledge the head of department, Mineral Processing

Department, Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology for his valuable suggestions

while preparation of the manuscript. The authors also wish to acknowledge for the

financial support provided by CSIR, Govt. of India.

Nomenclature

d80 80% passing size

dp particle size

rpm revolutions/minute

PCBs printed circuit boards

AAS atomic absorption spectroscopy

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Fig. 1: Schematic diagram of Hazemag crusher experimental set-up

18
 1

0.8
Cumulative fraction

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
100 1000 10000
Particle size, µm

Fig. 2: Product size analysis of Hazemag crusher at optimal conditions

19
Fig. 3: Schematic diagram of Hammer mill experimental set-up

20
 1

Hammer mill
0.8
Hazemag crusher
Cumulative fraction

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
10 100 1000 10000
Particle size, µm

Fig. 4: Comparison of product size analysis of Hazemag crusher and Hammer

mill at optimal conditions

21
 1

0.8
Cumulative mass fraction

Feed rate
0.6

0.4 Low (0.933 kg/h)

Medium (1.000 kg/h)

0.2
High (1.080 kg/h)
0
10 100 1000 10000
Particle size, µm

Fig. 5: Product size distribution of hammer milled PCB scraps at varying feed

rates

22
Fig. 6: Schematic line diagram of a circulating air classifier

23
 60

50

40
% metal

30

20

10

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

Particle size, µm

Fig. 7: The measured variation of % metal content with the particle size

24
 100
Metal content, %

10

1
6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000

Superficial Air Flow Velocity, m/h

Fig. 8: Variation of percent metal content with superficial air flow velocity for the

stationary bottom angular vane configurations

25
 60

50

40
% metal

30

20

10

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

Particle size, µm

Fig. 9: Differential distribution of metals in the hammer milled PCB

26
 Fan

Guide Vanes

Feeder

Fig. 10: Rotating disc and fan section of wheel classifier

27
 Figure caption:

Fig. 1: Schematic diagram of Hazemag crusher experimental set-up

Fig. 2: Product size analysis of Hazemag crusher at optimal conditions

Fig. 3: Schematic diagram of Hammer mill experimental set-up

Fig. 4: Comparison of product size analysis of Hazemag crusher and Hammer

mill at optimal conditions

Fig. 5: Product size distribution of hammer milled PCB scraps at varying feed

rates

Fig. 6: Schematic line diagram of a circulating air classifier

Fig. 7: The measured variation of % metal content with the particle size

Fig. 8: Variation of percent metal content with superficial air flow velocity for the

stationary bottom angular vane configurations

Fig. 9: Differential distribution of metals in the hammer milled PCB

Fig. 10: Rotating disc and fan section of wheel classifier

28

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