Disposal of POLYCHLORINATED BYPHENYL from capacitors.

[balasparks]

From waste Printed Circuit Boards we removed lot of Capacitors which contains POLYCHLORINATED BYPHENYL (PCB) and that is having a Aluminum body.

We are going to recycle the aluminium body to aluminium ingots.But the difficulty is the remaining PCB(as electrolyte).

So,
1. How to dispose the PCB in a safety manner.( i studied that PCB"s are HYDROPHOBIC. if that is the case shall we grind the whole capacitor and putting the whole grinded product into the water bath, then PCB's will be flote on the water surface and the denser one will settle down(EX: Al) which is easy to separate the metal and PCB's.

Or is there any other ways to dispose the PCB's safely....

 

[canedane]

Please do not try to recycle them!
To get rid of the pcb they have to be burned with a very high temperature.
Do not mix them with water, you will spread the pollution, and pcb is one of the worst industrial poison we have.
Ice bears with two penis is a product of pcb, pcb dont know about borders, and mother nature cant destroy pcb.
I hope you do the right things with the capacitors, our world is in your hands right now.
Regard from Henrik

 

[Topher_osAUrus]

...
Ice bears with two penis is a product of pcb, pcb dont know about borders, ...

Would that not help prevent their extinction?
Or, at least double their odds?

A joke.
Not necessarily a funny one

 

[jason_recliner]

I seem to recall hearing several decades ago about automotive anti-freeze - almost certainly not modern premix - being able to destroy PCB.
But I don't recall the process. Does anyone know of this? It may or may not be worth studying further, but regardless, however you decide to act, you want to be very sure you know exactly what you are doing and why. You may only have one chance to get it right.

 

[butcher]

balasparks,
Aluminum is is common in so many things nowadays which does not have the dangers of PC B's, which you can recycle without the danger to yourself or others, with the small value of aluminum, complications of refining or recovering it chemically would not be profitable, with melting the cost of fuel and labor, recovery would most likely cost you more than you could get for the metal.

PC B's are just so very dangerous, This is something that you definitely do not want to get into, and could not profit from.

Your time and effort would be better spent in other areas of recovery of metals.
Maybe you could collect them and sell them to some company which can properly deal with them and their dangers? And move on to spend your time on recovery of less dangerous, less complicated, and more profitable projects.

https://www.epa.gov/pcbs/learn-about-polychlorinated-biphenyls-pcbs#healtheffects

http://www.clearwater.org/news/pcbhealth.html

 

[balasparks]

I have to Thank all the persons who clarified my doubt......

once again thank you to all, and i won't try this disposal PCB anymore.

 

[double-plus-good]

apparently pcb makes good cooking oil :shock:

 

[Topher_osAUrus]

Dont they badically just use mineral oil in the cooling of transformers?

 

[g_axelsson]

Dont they badically just use mineral oil in the cooling of transformers?

In new installations, yes. But there are a lot of old transformers out there and if not properly decontaminated there will be left over pcb even after an oil change.

Göran

 

[Topher_osAUrus]

Ah, thats the missing link i was overlooking.
Good to know!

Thank you Göran

 

[Platdigger]

Besides that, it has all ways been my understanding that pcb's also form with the use of a transformer. Even if it starts out as clean mineral oil.
If this is wrong, I know were there is some good oil.