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Waste Management of Printed Wiring Boards: A Life Cycle Assessment of the Metals Recycling Chain from Liberation through Refining

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REWAS 2016

Abstract

Due to economic and societal reasons, informal activities including open burning, backyard recycling, and landfill are still the prevailing methods used for electronic waste treatment in developing countries. Great efforts have been made, especially in China, to promote formal approaches. A formal recycling process can, however, engender environmental impact and resource consumption, although information is currently limited. To quantitatively assess the environmental impact of a formal printed wiring board (PWB) recycling chain, life cycle assessment (LCA) was applied to the steps from waste liberation through materials refining [1]. Scenario modeling was conducted, and results were compared to conventional primary metals production processes.

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  1. Mianqiang Xue, Alissa Kendall, Zhenming Xu, Julie M. Schoenung, “Waste Management of Printed Wiring Boards: A Life Cycle Assessment of the Metals Recycling Chain from Liberation through Refining,” Environmental Science & Technology, 2015, 49 (2), pp. 940–947; doi:10.1021/es504750q.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Mianqiang Xue & Zhenming Xu

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, California, 95616, USA

    Mianqiang Xue

  3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, California, 95616, USA

    Alissa Kendall & Julie M. Schoenung

Authors
  1. Mianqiang Xue
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  2. Alissa Kendall
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  3. Zhenming Xu
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  4. Julie M. Schoenung
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department Materials Engineering of KU Leuven, Belgium

    Bart Blanpain (full professor, co-director for the I/UCRC ‘Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling’, co-editor-in-chief for the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy) (full professor, co-director for the I/UCRC ‘Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling’, co-editor-in-chief for the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy)

  2. Umicore Precious Metals Refining, Hoboken, Belgium

    Christina Meskers (senior manager and leading the Market Intelligence and Business Research team) (senior manager and leading the Market Intelligence and Business Research team)

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT, USA

    Elsa Olivetti (Thomas Lord Assistant Professor) (Thomas Lord Assistant Professor)

  4. Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), USA

    Diran Apelian (Alcoa-Howmet Professor of Engineering and Founding Director of the Metal Processing Institute (MPI) & Brajendra Mishra (Kenneth G. Merriam Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Assoc. Director of the Metal Processing Institute, Director of the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Collaborative Research Center on Resource Recovery & Recycling) (Alcoa-Howmet Professor of Engineering and Founding Director of the Metal Processing Institute (MPI) &  (Kenneth G. Merriam Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Assoc. Director of the Metal Processing Institute, Director of the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Collaborative Research Center on Resource Recovery & Recycling)

  5. Purdue University, USA

    John Howarter (assistant professor in materials engineering) (assistant professor in materials engineering)

  6. SINTEF, Norway

    Anne Kvithyld (senior research scientist) (senior research scientist)

  7. IND LLC, USA

    Neale R. Neelameggham (‘The Guru’) (‘The Guru’)

  8. Argonne National Laboratory, USA

    Jeff Spangenberger (engineering specialist, Sr) (engineering specialist, Sr)

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© 2016 TMS (The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society)

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Xue, M., Kendall, A., Xu, Z., Schoenung, J.M. (2016). Waste Management of Printed Wiring Boards: A Life Cycle Assessment of the Metals Recycling Chain from Liberation through Refining. In: Kirchain, R.E., et al. REWAS 2016. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48768-7_44

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