Metal Recovery and Pb Removal by Melting Mixture of Lead Glass and Printed Circuit Board

Abstract

Reduction melting methods to remove Pb from lead silicate glasses such as cathode ray tube funnel glass have been extensively studied. In this paper, reduction melting of a model lead glass was conducted using printed circuit board as reductant. Model lead silicate glass, viscosity reducing agent (Na2CO3), and printed circuit board were mixed and melted at 1473 K. Metal phase mainly composed of Pb was formed and settled in the melting glass residue. With increasing printed circuit board addition, the amount of metal phase increased and the concentrations of PbO remained in the glass residue decreased, indicating that addition of printed circuit board is effective to remove Pb from the Pb glass. By EDS analysis, it was confirmed that Cu, Ni and Sn are contained in the metal phase, indicating that metals in printed circuit board are recovered with Pb.

Keywords

• cathode ray tube glass
• printed circuit boards
• lead oxide
• reduction melting
• lead bromide