Auswirkungen der Pyrolyse auf die metallurgische Weiterverarbeitung von Elektronikschrotten

At the nonferrous metallurgy the recycling process of different scraps to recover several metals plays an important role. In this connection a huge area includes waste electrical and electronic equipment, e.g. printed circuit boards (PCB; average 45 % metals, such as copper, precious metals, lead, zinc, tin, etc.), which forms the feedstock of described investigations. However, their complex composition requires suitable processing and recycling steps to avoid environmental problems. In terms of PCB, a direct combustion would result in the formation of harmful off-gas, such as halogenated dioxins and furans due to contained chlorine and fluorine. In order to avoid this, the pyrolysis is an appropriate method that removes organic substances without generation of the latter, due to the usage of an inert gas atmosphere. The separated detrimental elements are particularly chlorine, fluorine and bromine. Subsequently the residue of this pyrolysis can be further processed, e.g. in a smelting process. Thereby an alloy is obtained by use of a collector metal, which is analysed to verify its implementation in the metallurgy of copper.