MUMBAI, India, May 1 -- Intellectual Property India has published a patent application (202611026480 A) filed by Rita Khanna; G. Brahmadas; and P. S. Mukherjee, New Delhi, on March 6, for 'e-waste recycling equipment for processing large pieces of 'as received' waste printed circuit boards and recovering copper, gold and other valuable resources.'
Inventor(s) include Rita Khanna; G. Brahmadas; and P. S. Mukherjee.
The application for the patent was published on May 1, under issue no. 18/2026.
According to the abstract released by the Intellectual Property India: "The present invention relates to the design, development and operation of a novel high temperature (600-1000 oC) equipment for pilot-scale recycling of waste PCBs and resource recovery. The equipment consists of a long multi-zone horizontal resistance furnace with three thermal zones: Cold-Hot-Cold along its length with charging and discharging doors at the two ends. The operational sequence involves the heating of the furnace to a given set temperature, the loading and charging of waste PCBs in the Hot zone, thermal processing, pulling the heat-treated tray into the cold zone and the charging of second batch of PCBs into the furnace. When the second batch completes treatment, a much cooler first specimens batch is pulled out of the furnace and replaced by the hot second specimens batch; the sequence is repeated several times. The furnace is switched off only when all operations have been completed. Power consumption was estimated at 6 kWh/hour for continuous operations at 800-900 C. Resources recovered include copper, metal fragments, silica, fine powders with 60-690 ppm gold, 50-130 ppm platinum and 14-69 ppm palladium. Adsorbents and rapid heating of PCBs were used to minimise the release of toxic emissions. Using a semi-continuous batch processing approach, large volumes of waste PCBs can be recycled in an economic, energy efficient, environmentally safe and sustainable manner."
Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.
