Characterization of non-metal fraction of waste printed circuit boards to promote recycling
department or school: Applied Science, Faculty of
department or school: Mining Engineering, Keevil Institute of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Kumar, Amit
issued: 2020-11-05T20:23:31Z
issued: 2020
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Electrical and electronic equipment has become an integral part of modern society. With the current technological advances, the life span of this equipment has been shrinking, leading to waste generation and issues related to end-of-life waste disposal. The circular economy model has been proposed to address the growing volume of e-waste. The model encourages reduction and reuse to decrease waste generation and encourages recycling to promote efficient natural resource usage. One of the challenges with promoting the circular economy model for e-waste is the insufficiency or absence of the recycling process for the non-metal fraction. The low value associated with the non-metal fraction increases its probability of being disposed of in landfills. This research explored the possibility of utilizing low-cost physical separation processes common in the mineral processing industry to recycle the non-metal fraction obtained from waste printed circuit board. The study showed that a density-based separation could theoretically be used to separate organic, inorganic, and residual metal streams from the non-metal fraction, thus increasing its reusability. The float-sink test and derived washability curves and washability indices showed that a conceptual three-product gravity separation process could produce an organic fraction with 47% yield at 86% organic content and a reject stream with a 35% yield at 72% fiberglass content. A gravity separation-based flowsheet was proposed for the recycling of non-metal fraction, and the potential applications of the recycled products were identified. Further test work at the pilot level would be required to estimate the process efficiency, related costs and understand the product characteristics for their proper application. This research also provided a simplified approach for determining the loss on ignition that can be used to estimate the separation efficiency. It also showed the applicability of advanced techniques such as inverse ga…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/76462
note: CHARACTERIZATION OF NON-METAL FRACTION OF WASTE PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS TO PROMOTE RECYCLING by Amit Kumar B.Tech., Indian School of Mines, 2011 M.Tech., Indian School of Mines, 2011 M.A.Sc., University of British Columbia, 2014 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Mining Engineering) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) November 2020 © Amit Kumar, 2020 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: CHARACTERIZATION OF NON-METAL FRACTION OF WASTE PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS TO PROMOTE RECYCLING submitted by Amit Kumar in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Mining Engineering Examining Committee: Dr. Maria Holuszko, Assistant Professor, Mining Engineering Supervisor Dr. Marek Pawlik, Professor, Mining Engineering Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Bern Klein, Professor, Mining Engineering Supervisory Committee Member Dr. W Scott Dunbar, Professor, Mining Engineering University Examiner Dr. Tom Troczynski, Professor, Materials Engineering University Examiner iii Abstract Electrical and electronic equipment has become an integral part of modern society. With the current technological advances, the life span of this equipment has been shrinking, leading to waste generation and issues related to end-of-life waste disposal. The circular economy model has been proposed to address the growing volume of e-waste. The model encourages reduction and reuse to decrease waste generation and encourages recycling to promote efficient natural resource usage. One of the challenges with promoting the circular economy model for e-waste is the insufficiency or absence of the recycling process for the non-metal fraction. The low value associated with the non-metal fraction increases its probability of being d…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2021-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0394917
language: eng
degree discipline: Mining Engineering
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/76462