Obtaining information about valuable metals in computer and mobile phone scraps using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS)

Abstract

The high costs of several raw materials used by the electronics industry justify studies regarding new analytical methodologies suitable for applications in e-waste recycling centers, industrial facilities and academic laboratories.

Industrial applications of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy: a review

“…147 Other applications have demonstrated the effectiveness of LIBS for the control of the process of recovering precious metals from electronic wastes. 148,149 Similarly, the determination by LIBS of the fraction of plastic waste from mobile phone scraps has been discussed by Camara Costa 150 and Aquino. 151 Another important application of LIBS is related to the European Commission project SHREDDERSORT, aimed at the efficient sorting of non-ferrous metallic scraps from the automotive industry 152 (see Fig.…”

Dismantling of Printed Circuit Boards Enabling Electronic Components Sorting and Their Subsequent Treatment Open Improved Elemental Sustainability Opportunities

“…This creates a plasma that emits light whose spectrum can be characterized using a spectrometer. LIBS can target almost all elements of the periodic table; thus, it has been used extensively to characterize electronic waste [109][110][111][112][113], including Ta, Zr, and Ba in capacitors [114,115], Au and Ag in ICs [110] and rare-earth elements in specific components (speakers, Hard Disk Drive magnets) [116]. We note that the literature is not limited to ECs on WPCBs.…”

Proposition of classification models for the direct evaluation of the quality of cattle and sheep leathers using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) analysis

“…The emission spectra obtained by LIBS generate large amount of data, and the association with chemometric tools is mandatory in several cases. This combination has been widely used for classication or discrimination of different types of samples, such as toys (PCA, KNN, So Independent Modeling of Class Analogy, SIMCA and PLS for discriminant analysis, PLS-DA), 16 soils (SIMCA and linear discriminant analysis, LDA), 17 pharmaceutical tablets (SIMCA and PCA), 18 wheat grains (PLS-DA), 19 inks and pigments (PCA, SIMCA and PLS-DA), 20 biomaterials and chemical warfare simulants (PCA and SIMCA), 21 plants (PCA and SIMCA), 22 soils and rocks (SIMCA and PCA), 23 polymeric fractions of scrap from mobile phones (KNN, SIMCA and PLS-DA), 24,25 powdered uranium concentrate (PCA and SIMCA). 26 This study presents a combination of LIBS emission spectra with classication models.…”