• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.367-371
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• 2012

Waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) contain valuable metals such as Cu, Ni, Au, Ag, and Pd. For an effective recycling of WPCBs, it is essential to recover the valuable metals. In recent years, recycling processes have come to be necessary for separating noble metals from WPCBs due to an increasing amount of electronic device wastes. However, it is well known that glass reinforced epoxy resins in the WPCBs are difficult materials to separate into elemental components, namely metals, glass fibers and epoxy resins in the chemical recycling process. $K_3PO_4$ as a catalyst in dimethylformamide (DMF) and N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) was used to depolymerize epoxy resins for recovering metallic and non-metallic components from WPCBs. Reactions of WPCBs were carried out at temperatures $160{\sim}200^{\circ}C$ for 2~12 h. The recycled glass fiber from WPCBs was analyzed by thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) and evaluated the degree of solubility of the epoxy resin for separation efficiencies of the WPCBs.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.894-899
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• 2012

In recent years, recycling process has come to be necessary for separating metals, glass fibers and polymer from WPCBs (waste printed circuit boards) due to an increasing amount of electronic device waste. In this study, dimethylformamide (DMF) and attrition mill reactor were used to separate the component such as metals, glass fiber and epoxy resin from WPCBs. Separation of glass fiber from WPCBs was carried out under stirring rates 300~600 revolution per minute (rpm) for 1~2 h as the various agitator. The recycled glass fibers (RGF) were analyzed by thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) for degree of separation of epoxy resin in the WPCBs. The degree of separation of epoxy resin of WPCBs increased in attrition mill agitator as a mechanochemical process for recycling WPCBs. The RGF separated in the WPCBs was applied as a reinforcement in the RGF/unsaturated polyester composites to reuse as a reinforcement.