JPH09194959A - Printed circuit board processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To recover a copper material of high purity in a simple constitution in a printed circuit board processing system. SOLUTION: A printed circuit board is charged into a hammer mill 1, is coarsely crushed and is thereafter turned into the fine powdery state with a pulverizer 2. Then, copper powders and plastic powders, which are turned into the fine powdery state by the high revolution of the pilverizer 2 and with the classifier 3, are introduced into the classifier 3, the heavy copper powders are recovered into a container 6 at the lower section via a rotary valve 4 and screw conveyor 5 on the lower side. The light plastic powders are introduced into a tank 8 from the upper part via a duct 7 and is recovered into a container 10 at the lower section via a rotary valve 9.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printed wiring board processing system used in electronic equipment, and more particularly to a printed wiring board processing system capable of recovering a copper material having a high resource value with high purity.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the spread of electronic devices such as computers and their progress and improvement, a large number of printed wiring boards have been used. These printed wiring boards usually become useless when the equipment is disposed of, but they contain a lot of valuable copper materials as resources. Conventionally, as a means for recovering a copper material from this used printed wiring board, it has been proposed to convert copper into a chloride or the like to separate it from the plastic which is a board material and recover it. Due to the problem, it is difficult to put it into practical use.

[0003]

In the conventional processing system for recovering the copper material from the printed wiring board, the equipment becomes complicated and expensive as described above, and the operation becomes complicated. However, it was difficult to put it into practical use.

The present invention has been made by paying attention to the above problems, and it is possible to recover a high-purity copper material from a printed wiring board with a simple structure, and the operation is simple and inexpensive. An object is to provide a printed wiring board processing system.

[0005]

A printed wiring board processing system according to the present invention is configured as follows.

(1) A printed wiring board processing system in which a copper material is taken out from a printed wiring board and can be reused, and a crushing means for crushing the input printed wiring board into a fine powder state and a fine powder state. A separating means for separating the copper material and the substrate material from each other by utilizing the weight difference is provided.

(2) In the system of the above (1), the separating means rotates the finely powdered material at a high speed to separate the copper material and the substrate material.

(3) In the system of (1) or (2) above, the crushing means crushes the printed wiring board into an ultrafine powder state in at least two stages of rough crushing and fine crushing.

[0009]

1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a printed wiring board processing system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, 1 is a hammer mill for roughly crushing a printed wiring board that has been thrown in, and 2 is a pulverizer (crushing means) for crushing each of the roughly crushed fragments into an ultrafine powder. It has a feed motor, a suction motor, and a feed motor.

Reference numeral 3 denotes a separator (separation means) for separating the copper material and the plastic (substrate material) from the fine powder material pulverized by the pulverizer 2 by utilizing the weight difference. The light plastic powder is collected in the container 6 through the rotary valve 4 and the screw conveyor 5 of the above, enters the tank 8 through the duct 7, and is collected in the container 10 below from the lower rotary valve 9.

Reference numeral 11 denotes a dust collector provided on the upper side of the tank 8, the upper part of which is connected to a suction duct of a turbo blower (not shown).

Next, the operation of the processing system having the above configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

The unnecessary printed wiring board is first put into the hammer mill 1 and roughly crushed therein (step S1), then sent to the pulsarizer 2 by a screw conveyor (not shown) and crushed into a fine powder state. (Step S2). The inside of the pulsarizer 2 is rotating at a high speed, and the powdered copper powder and plastic powder are guided to the upper separator 3 where they are separated by a weight difference (step S3).

That is, the rotor also rotates at a high speed in the separator 3 and the heavy copper powder is guided to the lower side and is accommodated in the container 6 via the rotary valve 4 and the screw conveyor 5. Light plastic powder enters the tank 8 from the upper part through the duct 7 and is housed in the container 10 through the rotary valve 9.

Here, in the present embodiment, the printed wiring board is pulverized in two steps into an ultrafine powder state, and the copper powder and the plastic powder are separated by the separator 3 so that the structure is simple and inexpensive. High-purity copper material can be recovered.
Moreover, it is not necessary to perform complicated operations.

The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiment, and the means for bringing the substrate into a fine powder state and the recovery element for the copper powder and the plastic powder may have other configurations. The present invention can also process multi-layer substrates, and can process various substrates simultaneously. Further, it is also effective in terms of transportation and storage to compress the recovered copper powder into a solid by pressing, and a wide range of applications are possible.

[0018]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to recover a high-purity copper material from a printed wiring board with a simple and inexpensive structure and also to simplify the operation.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of one embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Hammer mill 2 Pulverizer (crushing means) 3 Minute sucker (separating means)

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A printed wiring board processing system for retrieving and reusing a copper material from a printed wiring board, comprising: a crushing means for crushing the input printed wiring board into a fine powder state, and a material in a fine powder state. And a separating means for separating the copper material and the substrate material by utilizing the difference in weight from the printed wiring board processing system. 2. The printed wiring board processing system according to claim 1, wherein the separating means rotates the material in a fine powder state at a high speed to separate the copper material and the substrate material. 3. The printed wiring board processing system according to claim 1, wherein the crushing means crushes the printed wiring board into an ultrafine powder in at least two stages of rough crushing and fine crushing.