JP2014008450A - Recycling method and processing device for electronic device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To allow recycling of components, shorten the manually-dismantling time in post-processes and reduce cost necessary for the dismantlement, in dismantling an electronic device which is assembled with a double-sided adhesive tape.SOLUTION: An adhesive force of the adhesive tape is lowered by loading an electronic device 20 into a reaction compartment 3 of a batch type super heat steam treatment device 2, evaporating water by an electric boiler 1, further heating the evaporated saturated water vapor by a super heat steam generating device 6, and exposing the electronic device 20 to the super heat steam to heat and humidify the adhesive tape used in the electronic device 20.

Description

  The present invention relates to a recycling method for an electronic device in which components are assembled with a double-sided adhesive tape.

  Recycling is important because small electronic devices such as mobile phones, portable music players, and portable game devices contain precious metals such as gold and rare metals such as indium. In addition, reuse of components such as a liquid crystal display is also beneficial from the viewpoint of reducing environmental impact. However, mainly for economic reasons, discarded electronic devices are processed by mechanical crushing or incineration, and finally only some metal materials are recycled.

  In order to use resources more effectively, reuse of parts is effective. This reuse requires manual dismantling of parts such as liquid crystal displays, cameras, and speakers from a wide variety of small devices, but there are many cases where it is not economically appropriate and the cost of manual dismantling is low. It was necessary to devise to reduce the amount. Furthermore, in recent years, there is a tendency that double-sided adhesive tape is frequently used for fixing components at the manufacturing stage in order to produce lightweight and small electronic devices without increasing the manufacturing cost. Fixing with an adhesive tape was one of the factors that made manual disassembly difficult.

  As a method of removing the parts bonded with the adhesive tape, there is a method of inserting the scraper between the adhesive tape and the adherend and peeling the adherend while moving the scraper. There is a high possibility that the adherend is damaged due to stress. Further, in this method, the adhesive residue remains on the part, which is a factor of reducing the commercial value as a reused product. Therefore, a pressure-sensitive adhesive tape has been proposed in which when an adhesive surface is stimulated at the time of peeling, gas is released and the adhesive strength is reduced, so that peeling is easy (see Patent Document 1).

JP 2003-171623 A

  According to the adhesive tape disclosed in Patent Document 1, it is possible to peel the parts without damaging them. However, since it is difficult to introduce such a special adhesive tape into all small electronic devices, a peeling method that can cope with various adhesive tapes is required at the actual recycling site.

  The present invention was made to solve the above problems, and in the recycling method of electronic equipment assembled with double-sided adhesive tape, it enables the reuse of parts, and shortens the manual disassembly time of the post-process, An object of the present invention is to provide a recycling processing method and a processing apparatus capable of reducing the cost required for dismantling.

The present invention relates to a recycling method for an electronic device that is disassembled after heating the electronic device assembled with a double-sided adhesive tape, and heating and humidifying the electronic device by exposing it to superheated steam generated by a superheated steam generator. It is characterized by.
Further, in one configuration example of the electronic device recycling method of the present invention, the pressure-sensitive adhesive material of the double-sided pressure-sensitive adhesive tape used in the electronic device has a temperature equal to or higher than the deterioration start temperature of the pressure-sensitive adhesive material, and the electronic device The temperature of the superheated steam is set so that the component included in the temperature is within a guaranteed range in which the component can be reused.
In addition, one configuration example of the electronic device recycling method of the present invention is characterized in that the exposure time for exposing the electronic device to the superheated steam is in the range of 30 seconds to 10 minutes.
Further, one configuration example of the electronic device recycling method of the present invention is a batch type in which one or a plurality of the electronic devices that are input at a time are collectively processed as a processing apparatus that exposes the electronic devices to the superheated steam. A processing apparatus is used.
In addition, in one configuration example of the electronic device recycling method of the present invention, a flow-type processing device that sequentially processes the electronic devices that are continuously input is used as a processing device that exposes the electronic devices to the superheated steam. It is characterized by this.

The present invention is also a processing apparatus for an electronic device that heats an electronic device assembled with a double-sided adhesive tape for disassembly, and a reaction chamber that houses the electronic device, and the electronic device that has been put into the reaction chamber. And a superheated steam generator that exposes the device to superheated steam.
The electronic device processing apparatus of the present invention is a batch-type device that collectively processes one or a plurality of the electronic devices that are input at a time.
The electronic device processing apparatus according to the present invention further includes a transport unit that transports the electronic device charged in the reaction chamber from an inlet to an outlet, and sequentially processes the electronic devices sequentially input. This is a flow type device.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the adhesive force of an adhesive tape can be reduced by exposing and heating and humidifying an electronic device to the superheated steam produced | generated by the superheated steam generator, The electronic device assembled with the double-sided adhesive tape Can be quickly dismantled. When disassembling, no special tools such as a screwdriver or knowledge of the joining site are required, and anyone can easily disassemble the electronic device and peel it off the adhesive tape by hand without breaking the parts. In addition, the present invention can be applied to any polymer material for the supporting substrate, and is versatile. As a result, the disassembly time is shortened, and at the same time, components such as a liquid crystal display can be reused, and the profits from recycling can be increased.

It is a flowchart explaining the recycling processing method of the electronic device which concerns on the 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the processing apparatus which concerns on the 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the processing apparatus which concerns on the 2nd Embodiment of this invention.

  Hereinafter, the present invention will be specifically described by way of embodiments, but the present invention is not limited by these.

[First Embodiment]
Hereinafter, a first embodiment of the present invention will be described. FIG. 1 is a flowchart for explaining an electronic apparatus recycling method according to the present embodiment, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a processing apparatus according to the present embodiment.
In the present embodiment, the target electronic device 20 is charged into the reaction chamber 3 of the batch-type superheated steam treatment device 2 (step S100 in FIG. 1), water is evaporated by the electric boiler 1, and the evaporated saturated steam is further reduced. It heats with superheated steam generator 6, exposes electronic equipment 20 to this superheated steam, and heats and humidifies the adhesive tape used for electronic equipment 20, thereby reducing the adhesive strength of the adhesive tape (step S101). .

The control unit 4 in FIG. 2 controls the temperature of the superheated steam by controlling the heating temperature by the superheated steam generator 6.
The condenser 5 cools and condenses excess superheated steam guided from the reactor 3 by a conduit, and discards the obtained water.

  Next, the heated electronic device 20 is taken out from the reaction chamber 3, and the operator dismantles the electronic device 20 by hand (step S102), and the operator sorts the components or materials according to parts (step S103). The parts and materials are delivered to the recycling company (step S104). The recycling company recycles the collected parts and materials (reuse as used parts, generation of recycled plastic, metal refining, recovery of precious metals, etc.).

  In this embodiment, as an example of the recycling method as described above, a mobile phone in which a liquid crystal display is assembled with a double-sided adhesive tape is processed. Specifically, the mobile phone was put into the reaction chamber 3 of the batch-type superheated steam treatment apparatus 2 and held for 3 minutes. When the temperature in the superheated steam atmosphere was measured, the temperature of the atmosphere was 210 ° C. After the superheated steam treatment, the mobile phone was dismantled by hand, the liquid crystal display assembled with the double-sided adhesive tape was taken out, and further separated into a camera, a motor, a substrate and a housing. The average time required for manual disassembly of the mobile phone was 2 minutes, and no screwdriver was required. In addition, it was confirmed that the disassembled liquid crystal display works and can be reused.

[Comparative Example 1]
When the same model as the mobile phone subjected to the superheated steam treatment by the recycling method of the first embodiment is manually disassembled without the superheated steam treatment, a tool such as a screwdriver is required, and the disassembly takes an average of 12 minutes. It took. From this, it was confirmed that according to the recycling method using superheated steam of the first embodiment, the dismantling time can be shortened.

[Comparative Example 2]
Further, when the same model as the mobile phone subjected to the superheated steam treatment by the recycling method of the first embodiment is heated by the heater without the superheated steam treatment, the temperature of not only the adhesive tape but also the portion of the liquid crystal display is predetermined. Since it rose in time, the liquid crystal display was damaged and could not be reused. From this, it has been confirmed that the recycling method using superheated steam according to the first embodiment enables disassembly without destroying the parts.

  Although the temperature of superheated steam varies depending on the type of adhesive material used for the adhesive tape, it is necessary to reduce the adhesive strength of the adhesive material and to make the parts reusable. Temperature within the guaranteed range that the temperature becomes higher than the deterioration start temperature of the adhesive material (softening temperature of the adhesive material), and the component parts of the electronic equipment can ensure the reliability of this part and the parts can be reused Should be set to be. Moreover, what is necessary is just to set the exposure time which exposes an electronic device to superheated steam in the range for a short time of 30 seconds to 10 minutes. When exposed to superheated steam for 10 minutes or more, for example, the temperature of the liquid crystal display part rises and cannot be reused.

[Second Embodiment]
Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the processing apparatus according to the present embodiment. Also in this embodiment, since the flow of the recycling process is the same as that of the first embodiment, description will be made using the reference numerals in FIG.
In the present embodiment, the target electronic device 20 is charged into the reaction chamber 9 of the flow-type superheated steam treatment device 8 (step S100 in FIG. 1), water is evaporated by the electric boiler 7, and the evaporated saturated water vapor is further removed. Adhesive tape used in the electronic device 20 by heating with the superheated steam generator 10 and exposing the electronic device 20 to the superheated steam while transporting the electronic device 20 with the belt conveyor 11 which is a transport means in the reaction chamber 9. Is heated and humidified to weaken the adhesive strength of the adhesive tape (step S101). The processing in steps S102 to S104 is as described in the first embodiment.

  In this embodiment, as an example of the recycling method as described above, the same type of mobile phone as the mobile phone used in the first embodiment is processed. After the superheated steam treatment, the mobile phone was dismantled by hand, the liquid crystal display assembled with the double-sided adhesive tape was taken out, and further separated into a camera, a motor, a substrate and a housing. The time required for manual disassembly of the mobile phone was 1 minute per unit, and no screwdriver was required.

  In this embodiment, unlike batch-type superheated steam treatment apparatus 2 that collectively processes one or more electronic devices that are input at a time, it is possible to sequentially process electronic devices that are input continuously. Since the flow-type superheated steam treatment device 8 is used, the time required for disassembly can be shortened compared to the first embodiment. Specifically, the processing amount per unit time by the continuous processing is approximately twice that of the first embodiment. In addition, it was confirmed that the disassembled liquid crystal display works and can be reused.

  The present invention can be applied to a recycling technique for electronic devices.

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1,7 ... Electric boiler, 2 ... Batch type superheated steam processing apparatus, 3,9 ... Reactor, 4 ... Control part, 5 ... Condenser, 6,10 ... Superheated steam generator, 8 ... Flow type superheated steam processing Equipment: 11 ... belt conveyor, 20 ... electronic equipment.

Claims (8)

An electronic device recycling method for disassembling after heating an electronic device assembled with a double-sided adhesive tape,
An electronic device recycling method comprising heating and humidifying an electronic device by exposing the electronic device to superheated steam generated by a superheated steam generator. In the recycling method of the electronic device of Claim 1,
The pressure-sensitive adhesive material of the double-sided pressure-sensitive adhesive tape used in the electronic device has a temperature equal to or higher than the deterioration start temperature of the pressure-sensitive adhesive material, and the component included in the electronic device is within a guaranteed range in which the component can be reused. A method for recycling electronic equipment, wherein the temperature of the superheated water vapor is set so as to be equal to the temperature. In the recycling method of the electronic device of Claim 1 or 2,
An exposure time for exposing the electronic device to the superheated steam ranges from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. In the recycling method of the electronic device of any one of Claims 1 thru | or 3,
A processing method for exposing the electronic device to the superheated steam uses a batch processing device that collectively processes one or a plurality of the electronic devices that are input at a time. In the recycling method of the electronic device of any one of Claims 1 thru | or 3,
A processing method for exposing the electronic device to the superheated steam uses a flow-type processing device for sequentially processing the electronic devices that are continuously added, and a method for recycling the electronic device. An electronic device processing apparatus for heating an electronic device assembled with a double-sided adhesive tape for dismantling,
A reaction chamber containing the electronic device;
A processing apparatus for electronic equipment, comprising: a superheated steam generator that exposes the electronic equipment put into the reaction chamber to superheated steam. In the processing apparatus of the electronic device according to claim 6,
A processing apparatus for electronic devices, wherein the processing device is a batch-type device that collectively processes one or more electronic devices that are input at a time. In the processing apparatus of the electronic device according to claim 6,
Furthermore, it comprises transport means for transporting the electronic device put into the reaction chamber from the entrance to the exit,
A processing apparatus for an electronic device, which is a flow-type device that sequentially processes the electronic devices that are continuously inserted.

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