Old Photocopier's - Selenium

[NoIdea]

Evening all - Read threw a past post and notice a topic on selenium, which brought back a memory about tearing apart old photocopiers. After dismantling numerous large (100+kg) copier's apart and selling the bits for scrap, i was told by the supplier that only a regestered recycler could do it due to new health and safety regulations regarding the selenium coating on one of it's drums, sorry can't say which one except it had a shiny blue tint surface, very pretty :shock: .

So my fellow readers, be warned and a little wiser. 8)

Deano

 

[Claudie]

Electronics

The demand for Se by the electronics industry is declining, despite a number of continuing applications.[73] Because of its photovoltaic and photoconductive properties, selenium is used in photocopying, photocells, light meters and solar cells. Its use as a photoconductor in plain-paper copiers once was a leading application but in the 1980s, the photoconductor application declined (although it was still a large end-use) as more and more copiers switched to the use of organic photoconductors. It was once widely used in selenium rectifiers. These uses have mostly been replaced by silicon-based devices or are in the process of being replaced. The most notable exception is in power DC surge protection, where the superior energy capabilities of selenium suppressors make them more desirable than metal oxide varistors.

Sheets of amorphous selenium convert x-ray images to patterns of charge in xeroradiography and in solid-state, flat-panel x-ray cameras.

Zinc selenide is used in blue and white LEDs.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenium



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