FINAL REPORT OF CHE 110 ASSIGNMENT

RECYCLING OF METALS FROM ELECTRONICS

GADGETS
SURVEY BASED
SUBMITTED BY:

TEAM “ETERNE”
MAYANK SHEKHAR B53 11907197
SHIVAM SINGH B44 11912347
AVINASH PANDEY B42 11912524
SUBMITTED ON

Abstract:
Electronic waste, or e-waste, is an emerging problem with developed nations as with developing nations. In
the absence of proper collection and disposal systems, awareness,and proper regulations, the problem is
rather more acute in developing nations.These wastes are environmentally hazardous on one hand and
valuable on the other.They contain substantial amount of metal value, including precious metals.
Personalcomputers are the biggest contributors to e-waste, followed closely by televisionsand mobile
phones. The growth in their consumption pattern indicates a manifoldincrease in the volume of e-waste
and calls for immediate attention to the managementof e-waste in general and their recycling and reuse in
particular.Their recovery, recycle, and reuse have become mandatory. Research and developmentwork on
their recycling has led to several technological options. However, aclose investigation of the options reveals
that there is no universally acceptable modelfor management of e-waste and they are still evolving. The
technology for recyclingdepends on the economic status of the region along with several other factors.R&D
efforts towards the management of e-waste and its recycling is seriously lackingin India.There are three
main constituents of e-waste, namely, glass, plastics, and metals. Theglass may be re-melted for production
of glass or for recovery of lead. The thermosettingplastics are difficult to recycle. The other types of
plastics can be recycled foruse as fuels or production of chemicals. The metals may be separated from the
plasticsand processed for recovery of individual metals. It may be said that physical separationtechniques
followed by metallurgical treatment is the best proposition for therecovery of metals. Detailed technology
development needs to be taken up for therecycling of e-waste that may serve the interest of the region best.
SUBMITTED TO : DR NAVDEEP SINGH
WORK DISTRIBUTION:
MAYANK: CREATED SURVEY PAGE, COLLECTED DATA FROM
INTERNET,CREATED PROGRESS REPORT,CONTACTED
OFFICIALS OF DIFFERENT E-GADGETS MANUFACTURING
COMPANIES,ANCHOR IN OUR SURVEY VIDEO

SHIVAM: CREATED PPT,COLLECTED SURVEY

REEPORT,COLLECTED PHOTOGRAPHS FROM JALANDHAR
JUNKYARD,VIDEOGRAPHER OF OUR SURVEY VIDEO

AVINASH: CREATED FINAL REPORT, COLLECTED

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY
JUNKYARD
 PREFACE
AS A PART OF THE B-TECH CURICULLUM
AND IN ORDER TO GAIN PRATICAL
KNOWLEDGE IN THE FIELD OF CHE110,
WE ARE REQUIRED TO MAKE A REPORT
ON “RECYCLING OF METALS FROM E-
GADGETS”.THE BASIC OBJECTIVE
BEHIND DOING THIS PROJECT REPORT IS
TO GET KNOWLEDGE IN RECYCLING OF E
WASTE.
IN THIS PROJECT WE HAVE INCLUDED A
SURVEY ON RECYCLING OF METALS OF E
GADGETS.
WE ARE THANKFULL TO OUR TEACHER
DR NAVDEEP SINGH FOR HELPING US IN
THIS PROJECT.
WE PROMISE YOU WE WILL KEEP THIS
RESEARCH ON SO THAT WE WILL
COLLECT MORE DATA.
BY- TEAM “ETERNE”
 SHIVAM SINGH
MAYANK
SHEKHAR
AVINASH
PANDEY
INTRODUCTION:
Safe and sustainable disposal of End-of-Life (EOL) electronic waste has
been considered to be a major sphere of concern both by the government
and public as well, due to its perilous impact on human life and
environment, arising from its hazardous and highly toxic constituents.
Disposal of such heterogeneous mix of organic materials, metals,
etc., entails a scientific approach and special treatment to prevent
exposing the inhabitants to the consequential damage implications
arising from leakage and dissipation of the same for effectively mitigating
the emerging risk phenomena escalating with the passage of time .The
threat perception arising over the last decade from accelerated
accumulation of e-waste on account of the emerging consumption
patterns across all sections of the society, influenced by the associated
advantages ranging from affordability to comfort in day-to-day utility with
respect to computers, cell phones, and other personal electronic equipment
has been found to be phenomenal. It is now imperative for the society at
large to evolve safe and scientific methodologies, both as a deterrent to the
impending damage potential to the environment and also for recovering
economically the embedded valuable and rare metals in contributing
to immense value addition to the waste, which otherwise leads to large
scale environmental and ground water pollution. Recycling, recovering,
and reusing of obsolete electronics in new product cycles have now
been globally recognized as a formidable challenge, taking into account the
inherent value addition potential of metals such as gold, silver, copper,
palladium, including rare metals, etc., which has immensely contributed
to the concept of recycling to be a very lucrative business opportunity in
both developed as well as developing countries. Also, the sheer
volume of such waste generated on account of the present-day usage
pattern poses a formidable problem in terms of storage handling and
disposal space, which as a natural corollary,happens to be a major trigger
across the globe for processing these wastes aimed at effectively extracting
the metal values and remove the non-metallic constituents.According to
the United Nations (UN), the initiative to estimate e-waste production, the
world produced approximately 50 million tons of e-waste in 2012, on an
average of 15 lbs. per personacross the globe. In 2012, the UN also stated
that, the United Kingdom (UK) produced, 1.3 milliontons of e-waste.
China generated 11.1 million tons of e-waste that was followed by the
UnitedStates (US) that accounted for 10 million tons in 2012 [7]. In
Western Europe, 6 million tons of electric and electronic wastes were
generated in 1998. The amount of this waste is expected to increase by at
least 3–5% per annum .This study also indicated that in the US, over 315
million computers would be at EOL by the year 2004. The same scenario
applies to mobile phones and other hand-held electronic items used in the
present society. In 2007, over 130 million mobile phones were discarded
alone in the US and by 2010 in Japan, 610 million mobile phones will be
disposed off. Every year, a European Union citizen leaves behind nearly 20
kg of e-waste . The problem of e-waste is global, for example, in China
about 20 million consumer electronic and electric equipment (EEEs) and
70 million mobile phones reach EOL each year and in India computer
ownership per capita grew 604% during the period 1993–2000 far
exceeding the world average of 181%. About 4000 tons per hour of e-
waste is generated worldwide. The printed circuit board (PCB) is a major
constituent of these obsolete and discarded electronic scraps. The typical
composition of PCB is non-metals (plastics, epoxy resins, glass)>70%,
copper ~16%, solder ~4%, iron, ferrite ~3%, nickel ~2%, silver 0.05%,
gold 0.03%, palladium 0.01%, others (bismuth, antimony, tantalum, etc.)
<0.01%.
 MATERIAL FRACTIONS IN E-WASTE

MATERIAL FRACTIONS IN A
TYPICAL COMPUTER

MATERIAL FRACTIONS IN A TYPICAL TV

MATERIAL FRACTIONS IN A
TYPICAL MOBILE PHONE
HARMFUL EFFECTS OF E WASTE

PROCESS OF RECYCLING OF METALS

WE CONDUCTED A SURVEY AMONG 50 PEOPLE OF AGE

(18-25) TO KNOW HOW WISELY THEY USE THEIR E-

WASTE.

SURVEY REPORT:
WE CONTACTED SOME AUTHORITIES OF SOME POPULAR E GADGETS
MANUFACTURING COMPANIES.

ACCORDING TO MADHAV SETHI (CEO OF REALME INDIA): YOU

CAN RECYCLE UPTO 70% MATERIAL OF A TYPICAL SMARTPHONE
OF REALME.
THEY ARE TRYING TO ASSEMBLE PRODUCTS IN INDIA SO THAT
E WASTE WILL REDUCED.
SUNIL DUTT(CHAIRMAN OF SAMSUNG INDIA) SAYS YOU CAN
RECYCLE 30-40% OF THEIR REFRIDGERATOR,45-50%OF THEIR
MOBILE PHONE,80-85% OF TV.
HE SUGGEST TO SALE THEIR PRODUCTS IN AUTHORZIED
SAMSUNG STORES ONLY SO THAT REECYCLING OF E GADGETS
WILL INCREASE.
WE VISITED SOME JUNKYARD NEARBY US TO COLLECT SOME IMAGES.
Summary and conclusions
The phenomenal transformation in the lifestyle pattern of consumers of
electronic goods, in the emerging scenario, is triggered by their
contribution to the convenience and ease in
everyday life. This is attributable to the concerted efforts of the global
scientific genre,
especially focused upon scientific developments in sync with modern era
living comforts of the target consumers. Incremental rate of
obsolescence and subsequent upgrades of product quality are key
psychological impacting factors factually influencing the consumers'
mindset in contributing to the faster turnaround of the product life cycle.
This aspect is proving to be a potential trigger in accelerating the pace of
accumulation of huge EOL-EEEs (e-waste) such as computers, mobile
phones, televisions, etc., contributing to the solid waste stream. The said
devices contain various non-ferrous and ferrous metals such as lead (Pb),
copper (Cu), gold (Au), aluminum (Al), silver (Ag), palladium (pd),
which as such gets disposed off as waste, even though it has immense
potential of being converted to wealth from waste, including but not
limited to serving the purpose of catering to as vital inputs in new
product cycle. These valuable and precious metals comprising e-waste,
when subjected to processing by the unorganized sector with limited
perspective of profit motive, by adopting, more often than not,
scientifically unsustainable methodology such as manual sorting,
grinding, and incineration, leads to catastrophic environmental
implications and health hazard to the workforce as well, especially
emanating from its consequent and collective toxic impact of both gas
and metal components.
Safe and scientific disposal management with respect to EOL-EEEs
continues to remain an uphill task, in both developing and developed
countries, and in the process, the former, more often than not, gets
cannibalized by the developed countries on account of their illegal and
irresponsible approach of shipping the same to developing countries, as
an easy escape. Advancement in technology for the sustainable recovery
of valuable materials from e-waste needs to be an evolving process to
resolve this escalating problem with respect to environment and life.
However, usage of the technology comprises many processing
techniques of thermal processing, bioleaching, hydrometallurgy,
pyrometallurgy, etc., deployment of which is interdependent upon the
intended processing and recovery objective, commercial feasibility
of the process involved, mandatory and regulatory issues in place, etc.
The developing countries as well are gradually tightening the
enforcement of regulatory norms in facing the challenges ahead, apart
from the developing countries in the European Union, for sustainable,
eco-friendly handling, collection, and disposal of e-waste. As is known,
the developed countries have technology and infrastructure superiority,
the developing countries, on the other hand, have the advantage of
economy with respect to labor cost, considerably impacting both
handling and processing cost and the prospect of accomplishing a win-
win situation based on one's inherent strength or advantages has the
potential for being commercially exploited with scientific temperament,
complement each other in making this world a safer habitat.
The conventional methods of e-waste management by disposing in
landfills or incineration or exporting to developing or underdeveloped
countries are becoming redundant since this is already in the process of
being banned in absolute terms with consciousness about its hazardous
and life-threatening implications dawning upon the stakeholders, with
passage of time, which to some extent is also influenced by print and
media. This can be furthered by active interaction between the scientific
community and the stakeholders, including the industry and public at
large, since it is ethically incumbent upon the scientists to play their role
in arresting the highly detrimental consequences to nature and life.
Stringent and mandatory norms are being put into place, even by the
underdeveloped countries, for protecting its citizens and the
environment, contrary to the slackness that earlier existed, thereby
exposing to exploitation by the developed countries. The presence of
precious metals in e-waste recycling makes it an immensely attractive
business potential, both in terms of environment and economics. There
is need for evolving fool-proof solution, which addresses the limitations
of current technologies, provides accessible and comparatively cost-
effective techniques, efficient and ecofriendly methodologies in
addressing the menacingly escalating threat to environment and life,
including but not limited to the carcinogenic impact of the toxins
released in crude processing of e-waste. CSIR-NML has developed a
processing technology with certain advantages vis-à-vis conventional
techniques with respect to metal recovery from EOL-EEEs and the
laboratory is looking for interested parties for further investigation,
development, and commercialization of this technology-based solution.
Increased public awareness and active participation among stakeholders
across the board, including government and regulatory authorities about
the damaging implications of crude recycling processes borne out of
unscrupulous profit motive and incentivise the tremendous business
potential of environmentally safe recycling through sustainable
methodology, based on scientific techniques, is essentially imperative.
Focused participation and change in mindset among all stakeholders
including the industry and inhabitants at large for tangible
accomplishment of the “two-pronged” intended goal and objective is
unequivocally essential from larger perspective, i.e., safe and sustainable
recycling while converting waste to wealth in adding to the country's
economy. Keeping in mind the rapidly escalating scenario and change in
lifestyle pattern, future safety with respect to environment and life,
evolving sustainable and scientific e-waste management in a focused
manner with sufficient infrastructure and financial resources is
imperative. On the other hand, evolving effective legislations and
monitoring mechanisms for enforcement of the same by countries is
equally vital, in accomplishing the herculean task that lies ahead.

THANK YOU