Recycling of non-metallic fractions from waste printed circuit boards

Waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) are important parts in the electronic waste. Nowadays, recovering metals from WPCBs are developed but non-metallic fractions which accounts for 70% of waste printed circuit boards have not been effectively utilized. The non-metallic fractions and hazards in waste printed circuit boards were analyzed in this paper. The results show that resins and glass fiber in non-metallic fractions can be recycled and bromine and heavy metals could pollute environment. Recovering non-metallic fractions are important to recycling and environment, which can be divided into physical recycling technology and chemical recycling technology, with the formal using non-metallic fractions as the filler materials, plastic modifier or building material modifiers, and the latter using non-metallic fractions as the fuel and smelting flux through incineration or convert non-metallic fractions into chemical products through pyrolysis or solvent decomposition. Both technologies have their own advantages in resource utilization of non-metallic fractions, and partly been put into industrialized application.