Vacuum pyrolysis of waste print circuit board

Waste print circuit board containing 11.38% Br was pyrolyzed in vacuum. Thermal stability of waste print circuit board was studied under vacuum condition by thermo-gravimetry(TG). Vacuum pyrolysis of WPCB was studied emphasizing on the kinetics of WPCB pyrolysis reactions. Based on the TG results, a kinetic model was pro- posed. Kinetic parameters were calculated for reaction with this model including all stages of decomposition. The average activation energy is 68 kJ/mol with reaction order 3. These findings provide new insights into the WPCB thermal decomposition and useful data for rational design and operation of pyrolysis.

Effect of copper content on the pyrolysis process of organic components in waste printed circuit boards:Based on experimental and quantum chemical DFT simulations

In recent years,scientists have become increasingly concerned in recycling electronic trash,particularly waste printed circuit boards(WPCBs).Previous research has indicated that the presence of Cu impacts the pyrolysis of WPCBs.However,there may be errors in the experimental results,as printed circuit boards(PCBs)with copper and those without copper are produced differently.For this experiment,we blended copper powder with PCB nonmetallic resin powder in various ratios to create the samples.The apparent kinetics and pyrolysis properties of four resin powders with varying copper concentrations were compared using nonisothermal thermogravimetric analysis(TG)and thermal pyrolysis-gas chromatography mass spectrometry(Py-GC/MS).From the perspective of kinetics,the apparent activation energy of the resin powder in the pyrolysis reaction shows a rise(0.1<a<0.2)-stable(0.2<a<0.4)-accelerated increase(0.4<a<0.8)-decrease(0.8<a<0.9)process.After adding copper powder,the apparent activation energy changes more obviously when(0.2<a<0.4).In the early stage of the pyrolysis reaction(0.1<a<0.6),the apparent activation energy is reduced,but when a?0.8,it is much higher than that of the resin sample without copper.Additionally,it is discovered using thermogravimetric analysis and Py-GC/MS that copper shortens the temperature range of the primary pyrolysis reaction and prevents the creation of compounds containing bromine.This inhibition will raise the temperature at which compounds containing bromine first form,and it will keep rising as the copper level rises.The majority of the circuit board molecules have lower bond energies when copper is present,according to calculations performed using the Gaussian09 software,which promotes the pyrolysis reaction.

Modeling of Micropores Drilling Force for Printed Circuit Board Micro-holes Based on Energy Method

The quality of printed circuit board(PCB)micro-hole processing directly determines the stability of the inner and outer circuit connections.Micro-hole drilling technology is a typical method for PCB micro-hole processing.The problem of optimal control of its drilling force is one of the main factors affecting the quality of micro-hole machining.To address this problem,the thrust forces and torques in PCB drilling were first modeled and analyzed,and the corresponding prediction models were established.The drilling force analysis was carried out through the micro-hole drilling experiment,the specific cutting energy under different feed rates was calculated,the influence of the size effect was clarified,and the accuracy of the prediction model was verified.The result shows that during the drilling of glass fiber cloth,changes in the material removal mechanism are induced as the feed per revolution is varied.When the feed per revolution is less than the tool edge radius,the glass fiber is not cut by the main cutting edge,but is crushed and broken.When the feed per revolution is greater than the radius of the tool edge,the glass fiber is cut by the main cutting edge.At the same time,the established analytical model can accurately reflect the influence of the size effect on the drilling torque in PCB micro-hole drilling,and the error is within 10%.This method has certain practical application value in controlling PCB micro hole processing quality.

Detection Algorithm of Surface Defect Word on Printed Circuit Board

For Printed Circuit Board(PCB)surface defect detection,traditional detection methods mostly focus on template matching-based reference method and manual detections,which have the disadvantages of low defect detection efficiency,large errors in defect identification and localization,and low versatility of detectionmethods.In order to furthermeet the requirements of high detection accuracy,real-time and interactivity required by the PCB industry in actual production life.In the current work,we improve the Youonly-look-once(YOLOv4)defect detection method to train and detect six types of PCB small target defects.Firstly,the original Cross Stage Partial Darknet53(CSPDarknet53)backbone network is preserved for PCB defect feature information extraction,and secondly,the original multi-layer cascade fusion method is changed to a single-layer feature layer structure to greatly avoid the problem of uneven distribution of priori anchor boxes size in PCB defect detection process.Then,the K-means++clustering method is used to accurately cluster the anchor boxes to obtain the required size requirements for the defect detection,which further improves the recognition and localization of small PCB defects.Finally,the improved YOLOv4 defect detection model is compared and analyzed on PCB dataset with multi-class algorithms.The experimental results show that the average detection accuracy value of the improved defect detection model reaches 99.34%,which has better detection capability,lower leakage rate and false detection rate for PCB defects in comparison with similar defect detection algorithms.

Optimization of low-temperature alkaline smelting process of crushed metal enrichment originated from waste printed circuit boards

A novel low-temperature alkaline smelting process is proposed to convert and separate amphoteric metals in crushed metal enrichment originated from waste printed circuit boards. The central composite design was used to optimize the operating parameters,in which mass ratio of Na OH-to-CME, smelting temperature and smelting time were chosen as the variables, and the conversions of amphoteric metals tin, lead, aluminum and zinc were response parameters. Second-order polynomial models of high significance and3 D response surface plots were constructed to show the relationship between the responses and the variables. Optimum area of80%-85% Pb conversion and over 95% Sn conversion was obtained by the overlaid contours at mass ratio of Na OH-to-CME of4.5-5.0, smelting temperature of 653-723 K, smelting time of 90-120 min. The models were validated experimentally in the optimum area, and the results demonstrate that these models are reliable and accurate in predicting the smelting process.

Crushing performance and resource characteristicof printed circuit board scrap

The crushing performance of printed circuit board (PCB) was studied on several crushers. The results show that PCB is a material which is difficult to crush. The crushing performance of PCB with disk crusher, especially vibration grinding, which has cut or impact action, excels that of jaw crusher or roller crusher. The PCB scrap is worthwhile to recycle using variety of modern characterization methods. When compared with natural resources, this material stream remains a rich precious metal and nonferrous metals. In PCB scrap, metals account for 47% of the total material composition, in which there exists 19.66% copper, 11.47% iron, 3.93% lead, 300 g/t gold and 510 kg/t silver, etc. In addition, the PCB scrap contains 27% of plastics and 26% of refractory oxides.

Pyrolysis kinetics and TG-FTIR analysis of waste epoxy printed circuit boards

Thermal decomposition of waste epoxy PCBs was performed in different atmospheres （nitrogen, argon, air and vacuum） at a heating rate of 10 ℃/rain by DSC-TGA, and the pyrolysis characteristic was analyzed. The gases volatilized from the experiment were qualitatively analyzed by TG-FTIR. Kinetics study shows that pyrolysis reaction takes place between 300 and 400℃, and the activation energies are 256, 212 and 186.2 kJ/mol in nitrogen, argon and vacuum, respectively. There are two mass-loss processes in the decomposition under air atmosphere. In the first mass-loss process, the decomposition is the main reaction, and in the second process, the oxidation is the main reaction. The activation energy of the second mass-loss process is 99.6 kJ/mol by isothermal heat-treatments. TG-FTIR analysis shows carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen bromide, phenol and substituent phenol are given off during the pyrolysis of waste epoxy PCBs.

Study on Metals Recovery from -0.074 mm Printed Circuit Boards by Enhanced Gravity Separation

Nowadays study on reutilization of discarded printed circuit boards (PCBs) has great significance for achieving secondary resources recycling and preventing environmental pollution. Physical methods show great potential and advantages on discarded PCBs reutilization, compared with chemical and biological methods. However for the particles of 0.074 mm PCBs, little work has been done in the past because of lower separation efficiency and recovery. In this work, the conundrum of 0.074 mm PCBs reutilization was resolved successfully with the help of Falcon concentrator. Separation mechanism for fine particles with different mass densities in a Falcon centrifugal concentrator was analyzed. The main factors such as magnitude of rotation frequency (centrifugal acceleration), anti-charge water pressure and feeding concentration were studied, and interaction of different factors was analyzed using DesignExpert software. The experimental results show that metals grade of 0.074 mm PCBs and integration efficiency were obtained as 76.89% and 80.77% respectively when feeding concentration was 40 g/L with water pressure of 0.01 MPa and rotation frequency of 50 Hz.

Efficient recovery of valuable metals from waste printed circuit boards by microwave pyrolysis

The recycling of waste printed circuit board(WPCBs) is of great significance for saving resources and protecting the environment. In this study, the WPCBs were pyrolyzed by microwave and the contained valuable metals Cu, Sn and Pb were recovered from the pyrolyzed WPCBs. The effect of pyrolysis temperature and time on the recovery efficiency of valuable metals was investigated. Additionally, the characterization for morphology and surface elemental distribution of pyrolysis residues was carried out to investigate the pyrolysis mechanism. The plastic fiber boards turned into black carbides, and they can be easily separated from the metals by manual. The results indicate that 91.2%, 96.1% and 94.4% of Cu, Sn and Pb can be recovered after microwave pyrolysis at 700 °C for 60 minutes. After pyrolysis, about 79.8%(mass)solid products, 11.9%(mass) oil and 8.3%(mass) gas were produced. These gas and oil can be used as fuel and raw materials of organic chemicals, respectively. This process provides an efficient and energy-saving technology for recovering valuable metals from WPCBs.

A micro-chip exploding foil initiator based on printed circuit board technology

Conventional exploding foil initiator (EFI) in ignition or detonation applications hosts many performance advantages, but was hindered by the bulky, inaccurate, inefficient and expensive shortcomings. We highlight a novel micro-chip exploding foil initiator (McEFI) using printed circuit board (PCB) technology. The structural parameters were determined based on energy coupling relationship at the component interfaces. Next, the prototype McEFI has been batch-fabricated using PCB technology, with a monolithic structure of 7.0 mm (l) × 4.5 mm (w) × 4.0 mm (δ). As expected, this PCB-McEFI illustrated the successful firing validations for explosives pellets. This paper has addressed the cost problem in both military munitions and civil markets wherever reliable, insensitive and timing-dependent ignition or detonation are involved.

Pyrolysis behaviour and combustion kinetics of waste printed circuit boards

The effective recycling of waste printed circuit boards(WPCBs)can conserve resources and reduce environmental pollution.This study explores the pyrolysis and combustion characteristics of WPCBs in various atmospheres through thermogravimetric and Gaussian fitting analyses.Furthermore,this study analyses the pyrolysis products and combustion processes of WPCBs through thermogravimetric and Fourier transform infrared analyses(TG-FTIR)and thermogravimetry-mass spectrometry(TG-MS).Results show that the pyrolysis and combustion processes of WPCBs do not constitute a single reaction,but rather an overlap of multiple reactions.The pyrolysis and combustion process of WPCBs is divided into multiple reactions by Gaussian peak fitting.The kinetic parameters of each reaction are obtained by the Coats-Redfern method.In an argon atmosphere,pyrolysis consists of the overlap of the preliminary pyrolysis of epoxy resin,pyrolysis of small organic molecules,and pyrolysis of brominated flame retardants.The thermal decomposition process in the O_(2) atmosphere is mainly divided into two reactions:brominated flame retardant combustion and epoxy combustion.This study provided the theoretical basis for pollution control,process optimization,and reactor design of WPCBs pyrolysis.

Recovery of Gold, Silver, Copper and Niobium from Printed Circuit Boards Using Leaching Column Technique

Nowadays, over 300 tons of Au are used in electronic equipment each year with other precious and strategic metals such as Ag, Pt, Pd, Cu, Nb, Ta, etc.. After the use-phase, the electronic devices become electronic waste （e-waste）; consequently it is important to consider e-waste as a secondary supply for the recovery of these metals. This paper presents the recovery ofAu, Ag, Cu and Nb from PCBs （printed circuit boards） of discarded computers using leaching column technique. The PCBs were crushed with a hammer mill until reaching a particle size between 3.33 mm to 0.43 mm, Then, it was leached with a sodium cyanide solution in a glass column using the following conditions： sodium cyanide concentration 4 g/L, flux 20 L/d kg PCBs day, pH between 10.5 to 11 and leaching time 15 days. Every day, after leaching, the pregnant solutions passed through a column with activated carbon to complete the closed loop system. The following recoveries were obtained： Au 46.6%, Ag 51.3%, Nb 47.2% and Cu 62.3%. A preliminary technical-economic study shows the feasibility to create a small-scale PCBs recycling plant. The initial investment is on the order of USS155,639, considering the recovered metals from the loaded carbon. The internal rate of return for a 10 years period IRR （internal rate of return） and NPV （net present value） estimated are 27% and US$105,926 respectively.

Study on High-power LED Heat Dissipation Based on Printed Circuit Board

In order to study the role of printed circuit board(PCB)in high-power LED heat dissipation,a simple model of high-power LED lamp was designed.According to this lamp model,some thermal performances such as thermal resistances of four types of PCB and the changes of LED junction temperature were tested under three different working currents.The obtained results indicate that LED junction temperature can not be lowered significantly with the decreasing thermal resistance of PCB.However,PCB with low thermal resistance can be matched with smaller volume heat sink,so it is hopeful to reduce the size,weight and cost of LED lamp.

Metals Recovery from Fine Printed Circuit Boards Using Falcon SB Concentrator

Physical methods show great potential and advantages on comprehensive reutilization of waste printed circuit boards (PCBs) because of lower investment and operation cost, higher efficiency and environment friendliness. However, metals contained in fine fraction of PCBs cannot be recovered effectively by conventional equipments such as high tension electrostatic separator or shaking table. In the paper, this conundrum was resolved successfully with the enhanced Falcon SB concentrator. The separation mechanism of Falcon SB concentrator was analyzed and main factors affecting separation efficiency such as magnitude of rotation frequency of bowl, water counter pressure and slurry concentration of feed were studied and interaction of factors above also were investigated using Design-Expert software. Experiment results show that complete liberation degree and great difference of density between metals and nonmetals are suitable to recover metals from -74 μm PCBs using enhanced Falcon SB concentrator and 80.77 % integration efficiency can be achieved when slurry concentration of feed is 40 g/L with the water counter pressure of 0.01 MPa and rotation frequency of 50 Hz.

Fabrication of integrated resistors in printed circuit boards

In order to utilize integrated passive technology in printed circuit boards （PCBs）, manufacturing processing for integrated resistors by lamination method was investigated. Integrated resistors fabricated from Ohmega technologies in the experiment were 1 408 pieces per panel with four different patterns A, B, C and D and four resistance values of 25, 50, 75 and 100 fL Six panel per batch and four batches were performed totally. The testing was done for 960 pieces of integrated resistors randomly selected with the same size. The value distribution ranges and the relative standard deviation （RSD） show that the scatter degree of the resistance decreases with the resistor size increasing and/or with the resistance increasing. Patterns D with resistance of 75 and 100% for four patterns have the resistance value variances less than 10%. Patterns C and D with resistance of 100 Ω have the manufacturing tolerance less than 10%. The process capabilities are from about 0.6 to 1.6 for the designed testing patterns, which shows that the integrated resistors fabricated have the potential to be used in multilayer PCBs in the future.

Supergravity separation of Pb and Sn from waste printed circuit boards at different temperatures

Printed circuit boards（PCBs） contain many toxic substances as well as valuable metals, e.g., lead（Pb） and tin（Sn）. In this study, a novel technology, named supergravity, was used to separate different mass ratios of Pb and Sn from Pb–Sn alloys in PCBs. In a supergravity field, the liquid metal phase can permeate from solid particles. Hence, temperatures of 200, 280, and 400°C were chosen to separate Pb and Sn from PCBs. The results depicted that gravity coefficient only affected the recovery rates of Pb and Sn, whereas it had little effect on the mass ratios of Pb and Sn in the obtained alloys. With an increase in gravity coefficient, the recovery values of Pb and Sn in each step of the separation process increased. In the single-step separation process, the mass ratios of Pb and Sn in Pb–Sn alloys were 0.55, 0.40, and 0.64 at 200, 280, and 400°C, respectively. In the two-step separation process, the mass ratios were 0.12 and 0.55 at 280 and 400°C, respectively. Further, the mass ratio was observed to be 0.76 at 400°C in the three-step separation process. This process provides an innovative approach to the recycling mechanism of Pb and Sn from PCBs.

An Improved Randomized Circle Detection Algorithm Using in Printed Circuit Board Locating Mark

This paper presents an improved Randomized Circle Detection (RCD) algorithm with the characteristic of circularity to detect randomized circle in images with complex background, which is not based on the Hough Transform. The experimental results denote that this algorithm can locate the circular mark of Printed Circuit Board (PCB).

10 Gb/s Optical Interconnection on Flexible Optical Waveguide in Electronic Printed Circuit Board

In this paper, we proposed 10 Gb/s transmission using 4-channel polymer waveguides on the optical electronic printed circuit board. It was simulated by the ray tracing method for tolerance study of optical interconnection and fabrication. In order for easy fabrication and high position accuracy, the polymer waveguides were forming silver coated 45° reflective mirrors by dicing method and e-beam deposition for 90° light beam turning. The coupling loss was demonstrated in different polishing grit sizes. The optical interconnection in board-embed 4-channel flexible waveguides was demonstrated with a low propagation loss of 0.1 dB/cm and a clear eye diagram at 2.5 Gb/s data rate per channel.

A Single-Board Integrated Millimeter-Wave Asymmetric Full-Digital Beamforming Array for B5G/6G Applications

In this article,a single-board integrated millimeter-wave(mm-Wave)asymmetric full-digital beamforming(AFDBF)array is developed for beyond-fifth-generation(B5G)and sixth-generation(6G)communications.The proposed integrated array effectively addresses the challenge of arranging a large number of ports in a full-digital array by designing vertical connections in a three-dimensional space and successfully integrating full-digital transmitting(Tx)and receiving(Rx)arrays independently in a single board.Unlike the traditional symmetric array,the proposed asymmetric array is composed of an 8×8 Tx array arranged in a square shape and an 8+8 Rx array arranged in an L shape.The center-to-center distance between two adjacent elements is 0.54k0 for both the Tx and Rx arrays,where k0 is the free-space wavelength at 27 GHz.The proposed AFDBF array possesses a more compact structure and lower system hardware cost and power consumption compared with conventional brick-type full-digital arrays.In addition,the energy efficiency of the proposed AFDBF array outperforms that of a hybrid beamforming array.The measurement results indicate that the operating frequency band of the proposed array is 24.25–29.50 GHz.An eight-element linear array within the Tx array can achieve a scanning angle ranging from-47°to+47°in both the azimuth and the elevation planes,and the measured scanning range of each eight-element Rx array is–45°to+45°.The measured maximum effective isotropic radiated power(EIRP)of the eight-element Tx array is 43.2 dBm at 28.0 GHz(considering the saturation point).Furthermore,the measured error vector magnitude(EVM)is less than 3%when 64-quadrature amplitude modulation(QAM)waveforms are used.

Numerical Analysis of Printed Circuit Board with Thermal Vias: Heat Transfer Characteristics under Nonisothermal Boundary Conditions

A thermal via has been used to enhance the heat transfer through the printed circuit board (PCB). Because the thermal conductivity of a dielectric material is very low, the array of metal vias is placed to make thermal paths in the PCB. This paper describes the numerical analysis of the PCB having metal vias and focuses on the heat transfer characteristics under the nonisothermal boundary conditions. The mathematical model of the PCB has the metal vias between two metal sheets. Under 2nd and 3rd kinds of boundary conditions, the temperature distribution is obtained numerically by changing the design parameters. The discussion is also made on the effective thermal conductivity of the PCB. In industry, the use of effective thermal conductivity is convenient for thermal engineers because it simplifies the calculation process, that is, the composite board can be modeled as a homogeneous medium. From the numerical results, it is confirmed that the placement of metal sheets and the population of metal vias are important factors to dominate the heat transfer characteristics of the PCB. It is also shown that although the nonisothermal boundary conditions are applied at the boundary surface, the temperature difference between the heated and the cooled section is almost uniform when the metal vias are populated densely with the metal sheets. In this case, the effective thermal conductivity of the PCB is found to be the same irrespective of the boundary conditions, that is, whether the isothermal or the nonisothermal boundary conditions are applied.