4.7 Article

Toxic footprint and materials profile of electronic components in printed circuit boards

Journal

WASTE MANAGEMENT
Volume 141, Issue -, Pages 154-162

Publisher

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2022.01.019

Keywords

E-waste; Electronic components; Leaching Assessment; Printed Circuit Boards; Regulatory Policy; Toxic Footprint

Funding

  1. National Natural Science Foundation of China [51974262]
  2. Science & Technology Pillar Program of Sichuan Province [2019YFS0450]
  3. UC Irvine's Lincoln Dynamic Foundation's World Institute for Sustainable Development of Materials (WISDOM)

Ask authors/readers for more resources

Waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) pose challenges for sustainable resource recovery and environmental protection due to the presence of valuable material resources and hazardous substances. This study collected and analyzed 50 electronic components (ECs) from WPCBs, finding that copper and iron were the most abundant constituents, followed by silver, gold, palladium, and platinum. The study also identified new toxic threats from arsenic and selenium leaching from some of the ECs, indicating the need for regulation to reduce the toxic footprint of electronic products.
Waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) contain valuable material resources and hazardous substances, thereby posing a challenge for sustainable resource recovery and environmental protection initiatives. Overcoming this challenge will require mapping the toxic footprint of WPCBs to specific materials and substances used in manufacturing electronic components (ECs). Therefore, this work collected 50 EC specimens from WPCBs in five ubiquitous consumer products, such as television, refrigerator, air conditioner, washing machine and computer. The work extracted and analyzed metal contents and used leachability assessments based on tests adopted by the regulatory policies from China and the United States. The work found that copper and iron are the most abundant constituents in ECs, with concentrations ranging 5.90-796.62 g/kg and 0-831.53 g/kg, respectively; whereas abundance of precious metal content is in the order of silver > gold > palladium > platinum, with silver concentration ranging 15-5290 mg/kg. The content of marginally-regulated toxic substance arsenic ranged 0-9700 mg/kg; whereas fully regulated toxic metals such as chromium, lead and mercury did not exceed the thresholds set by China and US standards. The work found new toxic threats from arsenic and selenium leached from 20 of 50 ECs exceeding regulatory standards. These results will aid manufacturers and recyclers in protecting workers' health and environmental quality from arsenic and selenium pollution, and should initiate discussion about regulating these toxic components as part of a comprehensive program to reduce the toxic footprint of electronic products.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.7
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available