China Nonferrous Metallurgy

Waste PCBs contain a large number of harmful substances such as heavy metals, polyvinyl chloride and brominated flame retardants. There is still no appropriate technology for treating the uneconomic glass fiber and epoxy resin therein, resulting in secondary pollution. In this paper, a self-designed rotary pyrolysis furnace was used for low-temperature anaerobic pyrolysis of waste PCBs in inert atmosphere. The effects of final pyrolysis temperature, holding time, heating rate and material size on the pyrolysis rate of waste PCBs and pyrolysis product yield were investigated. The experimental results show that the waste PCBs can be fully pyrolyzed under the conditions of pyrolysis temperature of 600℃, pyrolysis time of 45min, heating rate of 10℃/min and particle size of 50mm×50mm. The pyrolysis products are as follows: pyrolysis oil, which can be used as fuel after dehalogenation treatment; pyrolysis residue, a good smelting raw material; and pyrolysis gas, an excellent clean energy after impurity removal treatment.