A New Strategy in the Recycling of Printed Circuit Boards

The resource parameter in life cycle assessments is used to evaluate present efficiency in resource recovery from printed circuit boards. It is shown that only a fraction of the resources held by PCBs are recovered today, and that in order to improve resource recovery a good knowledge of the chemical content of electronic components is necessary. Analytical techniques specially suited to the analysis of electronic components are discussed, and it is concluded that critical resources are indeed concentrated in certain electronic components. Finally, an automated system for removing components from the boards and for recognising and sorting the components is discussed.