Pyrolysis and combustion of electronic wastes

Abstract The decreasing costs and increasing availability of electronic products of all kinds, including mobile phones, audio and video equipment, and personal computers and their accessories, coupled with advances in technology that rapidly make these products obsolete, foretell a growing disposal problem. The materials employed in the present work were a mobile phone (printed circuit board + casing) and printed circuit boards alone. Pyrolysis and combustion runs at 500 °C in a horizontal laboratory furnace were performed, and the analyses of the gas and semivolatile fractions (including dioxins and furans and “dioxin-like” PCBs) are shown. The mobile phone and printed circuit boards were analysed for PCDD/F and “dioxin-like” PCB content in order to establish the level of pollutant in the samples themselves. Some TG–MS experiments were carried out in order to better know the thermal decomposition of electronic wastes and identify some compounds emitted during the controlled heating of these materials. Furthermore, a kinetic study of the thermal decomposition of the electronic circuit (EC) both in nitrogen and nitrogen:oxygen atmospheres using different heating rates is presented.

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