Trends in Toxic Metal Levels in Discarded Laptop Printed Circuit Boards

• DOI: 10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.878.413
• Publication Date: 2014-01-16T16:41:44Z
• Authors: Gilbert U. Adie; Olukemi E. Balogun; Jin Hui Li; Oladele Osibanjo
• Keywords: 13. Climate action; 11. Sustainability; 01 natural sciences; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences; 12. Responsible consumption

Waste printed circuit boards (PCBs) contain toxic metals at concentrations that could pose human and environmental threats if improperly disposed of. Also, PCBs are known to appreciable quantities of precious with economic value. This study investigated the levels Cu, Pb, Ni, Zn Cd in extracted from ten discarded laptops outlined trends can be drawn results. The were made by a world-wide leading original equipment manufacturer (OEM). whole disassembled enable extraction populated PCBs; components dismounted all de-populated separately crushed, sieved, total recoverable aforementioned using EPA 3050B method. analysed following Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) Synthetic Precipitation (SPLP) tests their leachability when exposed municipal landfill rain water, respectively. extracts for metal atomic absorption spectrophotometric technique. sequence was Cu (3.23±0.41%) > Pb (1.95±0.57%) Ni (0.88±0.36%) (0.012±0.003%) (4.00±2.30 mg/kg). Our revealed reduction average % least 6 1.5 times, respectively compared previous studies. level also noticed decrease 2.5% produced 2006 1.7% those 2009. On one hand, this sign efforts conducted OEMs shift towards design eco-friendly products. other (mg/L) TCLP SPLP leachates 13 11 times higher than limit 5mg/L. Discarded laptop should still handled as hazardous waste.