Degradation products of the process of thermal recovery of copper from lamina scraps in lab-scale fluidized bed reactor

This paper presents experimental results dealing with a process for recovering copper in the scrap composite materials issued from electronic laminas industry. This environment-friendly process consists in the thermal treatment of scrap in a fluidized bed whose particles fix the harmful gases emitted by the organic glue gasification. A series of experiments was carried out in a thermobalance, coupled to FTIR spectrometer and GC/MS with small lamina samples. These experiments demonstrated the thermal behavior of scrap composite materials, and identified the major degradation reaction gases. A series of experiments was performed with bigger scrap samples hung in a laboratory-scale fluidized bed coupled to FTIR and MS, at 350degreesC; the results confirmed those obtained in thermobalance. Experiments showed that a residence time lasting less than 5 min is sufficient to recover the metallic copper, and exhaust gases are not harmful. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.