Large Scale E-Waste Recycling Processes Question

Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

SLKInf

Member
Joined
May 20, 2017
Messages
19
Good afternoon;

I have been studying up on this forum since I discovered it over a month ago and really appreciate your willingness to share your vast knowledge. Sorry in advance for the length of the post.

I am 33, have been a Marine helicopter pilot for the past 10 years, and am currently earning my MBA in Madrid Spain. I have been somewhat involved in the recycling industry for several years, and have a small consumer electronics refurbishment and resale company back in the States that is operating in several locations. That experience has made me want to get further into the recycling industry and it has been my plan for several years to determine the viability of an e-waste recycling plant in Latin America once I left the Corps (last Oct), which is one of the main reasons I am in this MBA program.

This forum has given me a lott of knowledge, but at the same time it has opened up a lot more questions. I have been a little hesitant to posting some of my questions for fear of coming off as the classic newb who comes in and asks everyone to solve his problems without doing his research, but I guess I will take the plunge here.

One of the most interesting discoveries has been how many different processes there are to achieve the same end goals. It has been confusing for me to differentiate between processes which are recommended because they are efficient and effective vs processes which are recommended because they are more focused on the small scale refiners who need inexpensive or small processes. It has also been difficult to differentiate between the different members' experiences who have found e-waste recycling unprofitable; whether that was due to small scale or different technology, or just that the items are straight up unprofitable.

My current research and business modeling is around the planned creation of a large, end to end recycling plant capable of recycling minimum 10 tons of ewaste a month, but I havent found much information on processes of this scale and larger. One of my questions is (hopefully I will not get smashed here for asking a "simple" question), there are so many different processes out there, however why not just go with turn-key machinery from one of the companies in China or Canada that make these end to end systems? With my limited understanding, it seems like this machinery with dry grind, air and electrostatic separation which they claim reaches 99% purity just makes things simple and clean, and then smelting and electrolysis for further purification as needed. This seems ideal as it doesn't require chemicals or waste water (besides the electrolysis), but I am sure I must be missing something in my understanding? And if these machines are so good at crushing and grinding, what benefits does pyrolysis have, which I would assume has a much higher energy cost?

http://www.pcbrecyclingmachine.com/pcb-1000-e-waste-recycling-plant.html
http://www.copperwirerecyclingmachinery.com/print_circuit_board_recycling_machine/

Thank you.
 
Hi Sam,

Here is my thoughts on this,

Large scale prcoess 1: smelting with copper follow by electrolysis
1- Pyrolysis
2- Incineration
3- Ball mill
4- Magnet separation
5- Smelt to make 98+% copper anodes
6- copper electrolysis to recover copper and collect anode slimes (PMs)
7- Chemical treatment of slimes to recover PMs

Large Scale Process 2: Smelting with lead follow by cupelation
1- Depopulation
2- Pyrolysis
3- Smelt with lead oxide and flux
4- Cupel the lead dore
5- Chemical separation of PMs

Large Scale Process 3: Hydrometallurgy
1- shredding
2- milling
3- magnet separation
4- chemical leaching for base metals
5- chemical refining of residue for PMs

These are the actual process I have seen or read about that people or companies do on collected circuit boards.

For processing e-waste like the whole
Desktop, microwave or etc, what I have seen is either completely automatic dismantling and sorting, or manual separations using labour.

Here is some cons and pros I can think of with those processes,

Large Scale Processing 1:
Cons: High eneregy consumption, large volume of feedstocks required, longer time to get the precious metals recovered
Pros: EPA friendly, low wastes.

Large Scale Processing 2:
Cons: Lead fumes, depending on fuel costs where it is operated might have high fuel costs.
Pros: Fast turn around time to get the PMs, can be feasible to process as little as 100 kg per batch or as big as 3 tons of components per batch

Large Scale Process 3:
Cons: Huge waste solutions, chemical costs
Pros: Using resins, recovery of other valuble metals such REEs or base metals as well as PMs might be possible.

This is just my input that I have learned or done so far.

You mentioned 10 metric tons of ewaste per month, is that actual e-waste or scrap circuit boards?

I might have some of the links related to rach process mentioned here, I will find them and post them here for your reference.

I have been doing my scrap circuit boards using lead smelting, but we have an EPA approved lead fume control and scrubber system and fuel costs here are just very cheap compare to other countries.

Regards
Kj
 
Interesting process and layout. Though I would try to source as much of that equipment locally to where your plant site would be. The closer to you your equipment is made, the more you will enjoy break downs and regular maintenance. I was in Europe in the military and remember what it was like waiting on parts from the US. It was usually 2 weeks from Redstone.
 
Great info KJ, thank you very much!
Those were the main processes I had been thinking however as always you added much more insightful detail. I am working to determine the rough energy requirements for the different processes as it seems that the first and second would require much more energy. You have discussed the benefit you have in Iran with your very low energy costs. Maybe we will have to start in Venezuela where fuel is nearly free.......justtt kidding jaja unfortunately Vz is not at a good place right now. That being said, using the plastic as fuel may lower some costs.

Three seems to be lower energy costs, but I have no experience with the chemicals, which would of course be very large. I would think could also add in copper smelting and electrolysis and leaching just for the PMs which would require less chemicals, but then its a cost benefit analysis of the tradeoff. What did you mean by "huge waste solutions" for process three? As in the resins? I would think that all of these will be able to be sold for scrap? Here is an interesting way that one company is using waste plastic in Colombia; http://inhabitat.com/lego-like-building-blocks-of-recycled-plastic-allow-colombians-to-build-their-own-homes/

Definitely true Smack. I am researching other suppliers but havent found many even in N America who do full turn key. There are definitely things like hammer mills, smelters, separators that can buy second hand or manufacture ourself, but just depends on everything working together.

We are working to visit a few large scale recyclers here in Madrid this week hopefully.
 
Smack said:
Interesting process and layout. Though I would try to source as much of that equipment locally to where your plant site would be. The closer to you your equipment is made, the more you will enjoy break downs and regular maintenance. I was in Europe in the military and remember what it was like waiting on parts from the US. It was usually 2 weeks from Redstone.

I couldn't agree more.

I dealt with a factory in China for over 10 years. The only way I could get consistent quality was having "boots on the ground" answerable only to my company. I also had to stock replacement parts, and provide technical support, here in the USA. If you buy overseas, even in Europe, plan (budget) on sending your technician/maintenance engineer to live at the factory to be trained. Ideally while your line is being built.

James
 
SLKInf said:
Great info KJ, thank you very much!
Those were the main processes I had been thinking however as always you added much more insightful detail. I am working to determine the rough energy requirements for the different processes as it seems that the first and second would require much more energy. You have discussed the benefit you have in Iran with your very low energy costs. Maybe we will have to start in Venezuela where fuel is nearly free.......justtt kidding jaja unfortunately Vz is not at a good place right now. That being said, using the plastic as fuel may lower some costs.

Three seems to be lower energy costs, but I have no experience with the chemicals, which would of course be very large. I would think could also add in copper smelting and electrolysis and leaching just for the PMs which would require less chemicals, but then its a cost benefit analysis of the tradeoff. What did you mean by "huge waste solutions" for process three? As in the resins? I would think that all of these will be able to be sold for scrap? Here is an interesting way that one company is using waste plastic in Colombia; http://inhabitat.com/lego-like-building-blocks-of-recycled-plastic-allow-colombians-to-build-their-own-homes/

Definitely true Smack. I am researching other suppliers but havent found many even in N America who do full turn key. There are definitely things like hammer mills, smelters, separators that can buy second hand or manufacture ourself, but just depends on everything working together.

We are working to visit a few large scale recyclers here in Madrid this week hopefully.

I have no affiliation with this company other than asking for a quote on some of their machinery (haven't bought yet).

http://www.mbmmllc.com/

Watch all the videos (including the ones on smelting). I was really impressed with their shaker table. Unfortunately, they aren’t building the smaller version anymore.

Jason (I assume he’s the owner/honcho) seems very knowledgeable and experienced. His smelting approach is very methodical. His use of XRF and then fire assay seems to agree with the GRF board’s consensus of a generally accepted principle and practice. I have found that if this is true in someone’s R&D attempts, it usually follows through to their manufacturing processes.

James
 
cosmetal said:
Smack said:
Interesting process and layout. Though I would try to source as much of that equipment locally to where your plant site would be. The closer to you your equipment is made, the more you will enjoy break downs and regular maintenance. I was in Europe in the military and remember what it was like waiting on parts from the US. It was usually 2 weeks from Redstone.

I couldn't agree more.

I dealt with a factory in China for over 10 years. The only way I could get consistent quality was having "boots on the ground" answerable only to my company. I also had to stock replacement parts, and provide technical support, here in the USA. If you buy overseas, even in Europe, plan (budget) on sending your technician/maintenance engineer to live at the factory to be trained. Ideally while your line is being built.

James


The distance is definitely a concern. Would you mind sharing more about your experience? What sort of operation were you running / equipment was it that you purchased from China?

I'm not discounting that at all, having a break down with no spare parts or having to spend thousands $ on shipping could be a killer in a company. That being said, I havent found any companies in the Americas making these full solutions. I would guesstimate that prices would be a decent amount more than the prices of the Chinese and therefore on the numbers side it would be a trade off between the initial purchase costs, and the costs to stockpile spare parts which you may or may not need. Strictly speaking from a numbers point of view not looking to get into a political debate about purchasing American vs Chinese.

I have checked out MBMM and they have a very good reputation both here and other places. This is my ignorance speaking so maybe I will get flamed into going back and doing more searches on the forum, but it seems like a process which uses air and electrostatic separation would be preferred over a shaker table which requires continuous water input and seems to operate slightly slower? Again I mean no disrespect here, just asking the question.
 
If you do have to buy from overseas, and dont want to have a bunch of equity tied up in parts that may or may not fail, It would probably be a good thing to have a darn good handy man/machinist/fabricator that could evaluate issues, and resolve them by making the replacement parts himself.

That probably wouldn't be a "fix" 100% of the time, but, that person could probably get you up and running until the needed part makes it past customs.

My father ran his own machine shop for years and saved many a farmer's butts every harvest, when its do or (let the crop) die. (..i know, apples and oranges.. Its the *point* that I'm trying to make) That, afterall, it was built by man... ...it should be able to be fixed by man. Whether that man is a mile or an ocean away.
 
Is it your intent to recycle the different plastics, glass, and metal fractions separately and recover the PM values? The equipment you are referring to has less hands on operators and one very talented machinist, engineer to act as a tweaker.

When the feedstock is fed into the equipment what comes out is a uniform shredded or shattered and classified by size particle. Then a lot of different separation processes are applied, mechanical, magnetic just for starters. The trouble with this system, unless you get very small particle sizes is the precious metals do not always conveniently report to bucket number 1. Depending what the little bit of precious value is alloyed with or soldered with or bonded to all matter in determining where it drops off the line and which bucket it ends up in.

You may make up for precious metals lost by getting paid for steel, copper, solder, and plastic or glass but then again you may not. The processes Kevin outlined are refining processes which recover more of the values, your process is more of a separation process with many many variables playing a role in the efficiency of collecting the precious metals all in one place for further processing.

And your tweaker, if he is good, is the key to success.
 
First of all Happy Fourth Of July to my American brothers and sisters! (are there any females on here? I don't remember seeing any posting.)

Good point on the machine shop repair guy. Ideally I would like to build as much of the machinery as possible. Working in some of the countries down south, they are very used to reusing and reusing items (one possible cultural or otherwise challenge to getting a steady stream of e-waste inputs to recycle).

I have the unique opportunity right now to be in a MBA program which focuses heavily on entrepreneurship and for the rest of the year, am in a kind of business creation ecosystem / accelerator. I have two Argentinian classmates and one Colombian who have joined my team, working on this business. We have access to successful entrepreneurs, mentors, other professionals etc through the school's program. The benefit being that I have the remainder of the year as basically time to research different business models and different processes to figure out which theoretically is the best for our situation. All that to say that I have not settled on a specific focus yet because I need to compare and contrast the different returns vs the investments and operations costs.

4Metals, could I pre-separate the components with high pm contents and use chemical leaching to extract the max from them. Then use the referred to equipment for the normal pcbs to pull out the steel, solder, plastic and glass via magnetic and electrostatic separation, and take the remaining metal powder, smelt and perform electrolysis to separate the metals? I'm sure I am missing something here, thank you for your input.
 
The benefit of the system you are talking about is the fact that you throw in the e-scrap whole so there is little if any up front labor. (with the possible exception of removing CRT's from televisions and monitors) If you want to pull out the components with the gold you are talking a lot of labor disassembling and picking components.

You also need to factor in the location where you are doing this. Ideally a location (or country) where the regulations allow chemical processing as well as incineration (or pyrolysis) will give you more options. As much as Kevin likes the lead cupellation process, I would steer clear of it as the lead is volatilized (at least 10% of it) and without expensive treatment it goes up the stack. And lead is not too kind on the body. They say it caused the fall of the Roman empire!
 
Hi there

I read this with interest but couldn't see where you confirmed whether you would be processing 10 tonnes of ewaste or ten tonnes of refinery product per month.

Could you clarify please?

Jon
 
Thank you for the replies. Sorry for skipping over KJ's question, 10tons of input per month as a easy to reach starting point based on the market size and companies located there. That would = less than .003% of the city's annually generated e-waste. But really, this is just a random number that doesn't matter until we have the deeper research of startup and operations costs solid.
 
Hi Sam

Just found this pdf from a German PCB processing that explains the process I mentioned here.

View attachment pcb-engl-03032015.pdf

Also, I suggest you check mbmmllc channel on youtube, Jason from the company, has many videos about e-waste processing using their mining equipments.

Jason and I did some extensive tests on pulverized printed circuit boards, and their system had 86% recovery rate on gold and 90% plus for silver and palladium.

They have improved their system since then, and I think if you choose the copper smelting methods their system can be good replacement for pyrolysis and incineration methods.

As for the fuel or electricity costs using their system which is mechanical separation, vs pyrolysis follow by incineration, I think their system uses more electricity per hour compare to that in pyrolysis/incineration again depends on the gas prices vs electricity kwh prices.

Our lead smelting operation has been approved as we have installed filtering scrubbing system for all our furnaces and twice a year we collect the bag filters and melt to recover the lead from the yellow lead oxide powder that is collected in the bags.

But I like to do a test of copper smelting follow by electrolysis for myself.

Regards
Kj
 
SLKInf said:
Thank you for the replies. Sorry for skipping over KJ's question, 10tons of input per month as a easy to reach starting point based on the market size and companies located there. That would = less than .003% of the city's annually generated e-waste. But really, this is just a random number that doesn't matter until we have the deeper research of startup and operations costs solid.


Yes, however as per my previous question 10 tonnes per month of what? Board product or ewaste? When you mention the 0.3% of the city's annual ewaste I'll assume that you mean raw product unless corrected. 8)

I think you should strongly consider whether to gear up with plant and machinery for this amount per month given the massive difference in grades of ewaste along with the actual yields of refinable product associated with these.

You would need to be processing hundreds of tonnes per month of raw material (non stripped ewaste)to make it a viable ROI over sending the stripped product to a refinery.
 
anachronism said:
SLKInf said:
Thank you for the replies. Sorry for skipping over KJ's question, 10tons of input per month as a easy to reach starting point based on the market size and companies located there. That would = less than .003% of the city's annually generated e-waste. But really, this is just a random number that doesn't matter until we have the deeper research of startup and operations costs solid.


Yes, however as per my previous question 10 tonnes per month of what? Board product or ewaste? When you mention the 0.3% of the city's annual ewaste I'll assume that you mean raw product unless corrected. 8)

I think you should strongly consider whether to gear up with plant and machinery for this amount per month given the massive difference in grades of ewaste along with the actual yields of refinable product associated with these.

You would need to be processing hundreds of tonnes per month of raw material (non stripped ewaste)to make it a viable ROI over sending the stripped product to a refinery.


Jaja yes, sorry for not being more specific. Lets just ignore any of the previous numbers I have thrown out as far as input and start from scratch.

First and foremost, this is just a feasibility exercise so you are watching as I crunch these numbers. Most everyone on this board has much more experience than I and so I will be making public mistakes as I work on this lol. I am not saying the plant makes sense one way or another, but lets go through this first iteration of public math. This is for straight PCBs. Regular e-waste would require much more than this, however would also provide us with many more base metals and resins.

Calculations:

Prices: http://coinapps.com/silver/scrap/calculator/

Avg yields per 1mt PCBS:
160g Au = $6,290.23
850g Ag = $438.89
60g Pd = $1,645.48
150kg Cu = $879.31
= $9,253.91 per mt of pcbs.

$4 per kg PCBS = $4,000 kg

$9,253.91 - $4,000 = $5,253.91 profit per ton

Yes, this is very subjective. I used personal experiences of several people I am in contact with as well as a general postings online such as the below, and then cut off a good amount to make it worst case;
http://www.vertatique.com/mining-ewaste
http://www.pjoes.com/pdf/23.6/Pol.J.Environ.Stud.Vol.23.No.6.2365-2369.pdf (I dont remember seeing this paper referenced on this forum but I found it interesting. Beyond the fact that it took me 10 minutes to figure out they use MG as MegaGrams = 1,000,000g = 1ton lol)

$4,050: 10 employees working 40rs week for one month

http://www.pcbrecyclingmachine.com/pcb-1000-e-waste-recycling-plant.html
Machine uses 160KW.
1kwh = $.17
160*.17= $27.2 per hr of use
$27.2*40= $1,088 per week
$1,088*4.5 = $4,896*1.5for additional indirect electrical expenses = $7,344 per mo

Chemicals: $5,508 (no idea on this so I just took 75% of the electrical expense since we will only be using chemicals for the high PM content components

http://www.century21global.com/property/bogot%C3%A1-cundinamarca-colombia-C21111262821-USD
Lease = $5,258 per mo

Financing: This is a black box right now, depending on what we need for startup, what I can get from SBA as disabled military vet, etc etc. Lets take worst case scenario of $1m@9%for120mo = $12,667.58

So fixed costs = $34,827.58*1.5 for safety margin = $52,241.37

$52,241.37 / $5,253.91 = 9.944mt of pcbs to break even.

This assumes that all e-waste would be purchased, which definitely should not be the case. It does not take into account any income we earn from data destruction, CSR consulting or refurbishment and resale, which should add at least a moderate amount of $. It also does not take into account any income or benefit from plastics, glass, fe, al, sn etc. Nor does it take into account any income from providing these end processes to other competitors who do not have them.

jajaja now this is of course very basic, back of the napkin calculations, but I tried to take all worst case scenarios. Hopefully none of my assumptions were completely off. Now, please tear this apart and show me what I took for granted / messed up lol.
 
Topher_osAUrus said:
160g of silver is almost $6,300?!?
...man, looks like I'm selling my crystals for WAY too little! :lol:

Nooooo idea what you're talking about ;)
 
Topher_osAUrus said:
160g of silver is almost $6,300?!?
...man, looks like I'm selling my crystals for WAY too little! :lol:

Hey Toph it's 160g of gold mate :D

SLK you need to do more homework on your yield calculations because they are not realistic I'm afraid. Unless of course you are looking at taking a specific type of ewaste discretely and basing your figures upon that type of stream. The vast majority of ewaste yields less that 160ppm, and the vast majority doesn't contain Palladium.

In counterpoint I think your copper percentage may be low however the trade off between copper and precious metals will not balance out financially.
 
Back
Top