E-waste recycling machine

Are the electronic components of waste PCB boards worth recycling? This issue needs to be discussed from two different aspects: 1. Reuse of electronic components as functional parts; 2. Recycling of metals and non-metals.

Can electronic components be reused?

It is neither practical nor economical to remove electronic components from PCBs and recycle them for functional parts. These parts are easily damaged and need to be retested to make sure they still work. Compared to mass-produced new parts, such parts are of poor quality and the labor cost of recycling would be huge. Most parts now need to be rolled up with tape. Attempting to re-tape and reel parts pulled from old circuit boards is completely impractical for cost reasons.

It is possible to recycle the discarded unfilled PCB itself directly into other products, but this will only happen on a very small scale. The process is laborious and the finished product is problematic. For example, in order to reuse waste PCBs and make beer mats, suitable raw materials must be hand-sorted and roughly cut into standard shapes. The blank must be drilled and fixed for CNC milling. After routing, the edge must be deburred where the router passes through the hole as sharp metal fragments may be left behind. The safety and look and feel of this finished product is questionable.

Recycling metals and non-metals of pcb electronic components

Because of the high-grade precious metals such as Au, Ag, Cu, Pd, Ta, etc., the waste PCB has a large residual value.

Capacitors are one of the main components in electrical and electronic products. Most capacitors are composed of PET film or PP film, iron needles (also known as electronic feet, outer tinned inner layer copper), aluminum foil and outer red or green paint shell. After equipment treatment, it is concluded that the aluminum sheet in the capacitor is about 30%, the iron needle is about 10%, the vinyl tip is about 25%, and the oil paper and plastic are about 35%. It can be reused after environmental protection treatment. So the recycling value is great. The recycling value of waste capacitors is great, and waste capacitors can be refined into aluminum ingots.

To remove electronic components from circuit boards, we usually use our circuit board disassembly machines. It melts the tin by heating, and then the electronic components will fall off, this device can save a lot of manpower. You can then extract precious metals such as gold, silver, palladium, etc. from the obtained electronic components using precious metal refining equipment. The bare motherboard can be crushed, ground and separated by our circuit board recycling equipment to get pure copper powder and resin powder.

Obviously, it is impractical or uneconomical to recycle electronic components from waste PCB boards as functional parts. However, recycling precious metals from PCB boards and electronic components not only protects the environment, but is an investment-worthy option.