Toxic smoke control in inceneration

[chlaurite]

Keep in mind that you can't compare at-the-smokestack (or tailpipe) numbers to ambient air quality limits. No doubt, it fails the latter something awful, and would certainly kill you if you ran it in an enclosed area.

I asked for a translation, however, because believe it or not, those numbers (without an explanation of the testing conditions) don't contain enough information to make a fair comparison to emissions standards (in the US, at least) without units of volume and time. If you measured that coming out of the tailpipe of a 25MPG car, those numbers (with the exception of the sulfur compounds) would pass EPA Tier 3 emissions with flying colors - And the sulfur compounds would still pass for uses not required to burn ULSD/ULSHO fuels (aviation, some marine, heating oil, offroad use).

Actually, in some states, those numbers wouldn't pass - Because the HC (which without a translation, most likely means unburned "HydroCarbons", not Hydrogen Cyanide) falls below 500ppm. That would disqualify the test as likely falsified, "too good to be true".

I also find it curious that it doesn't contain the numbers really of primary interest to us (since we don't talk about burning a relatively clean hydrocarbon fuel here) - PM10, PM2.5, Lead, Mercury, and Chromium. The last two you wouldn't expect as standard, but the first three, pretty much ubiquitous.

 

[Anonymous]

I hear what you're saying about timings etc Chlaurite although I would point out that he's actually in the UAE and we definitely would need a translator to work out the documentation they have for tolerances and limits :shock:

 

[kjavanb123]

All,

I didn't see the need of translation, according to the guy who tested the gas exiting from the incinerator, they were taken in 10 minutes and 40 minutes into the burning of misc boards.

It passed the EPA standard here locally.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[butcher]

With the EPA regulations it is how much you burn and produce toxic fumes in a time period.

Industrially they can produce a lot of deadly smoke in one day, and as long as they do not produce too much deadly smoke for the rest of the month, they can pass the EPA's regulations.
Or they can produce just a little deadly smoke every day and as long as they do not produce more deadly smoke than the allowed for that month they can pass the EPA regulation.

Heavy metals in the ash and dust, as well as the gases produced are both toxic.

After burners can help to lower the toxic gases, and scrubbers can help with the toxic gases, but you will still need some type of bag filters to control the toxic heavy metal dust and ash coming from the flue.
I did not see where they tested for particulate matter.

kjavanb123, it is good you are doing this research.
But I still feel you would be better off, being a middle man, and buying and selling the scrap, letting someone else handle the dirty work, and working on getting the most profit from your scrap, by better learning to sort, upgrade or determine value, buying scrap as low as possible upgrading and selling it as high as possible.

 

[kjavanb123]

Butcher,

Thanks for your posts, the ashes and flying particles were also tested, here is the result, this is done in one hour incineration electronic boards which produced one hell of smoke once i burned a few grams sample.



Sorry about bad quality, haven't figured out how to upload a pdf file with iPad.

I like to be like refiners, who buy scraps, melt to anode, xrf then sell to big smelters, since there is a big copper refinery in close distance.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[Anonymous]

kjavanb123, it is good you are doing this research.
But I still feel you would be better off, being a middle man, and buying and selling the scrap, letting someone else handle the dirty work, and working on getting the most profit from your scrap, by better learning to sort, upgrade or determine value, buying scrap as low as possible upgrading and selling it as high as possible.

I think that Butcher is correct Kevin. I think you're trying to reinvent the wheel here unnecessarily. I trade in tons of this stuff, so unless you've got a couple of million bucks to throw at setting up properly, licencing with all the relevant authorities, guaranteeing a regular source of product, then I wouldn't bother.

One of the biggest keys to getting money from refining is understanding where the metals are, and how to get them out. The tiny percentages make the difference between a profit and a loss. People who know this cost a lot of money to employ. You don't know this, and respectfully constantly demonstrate that you really don't even grasp the basics. Melting things into a lump of slag using the wrong process, and sending them off for assay without keeping the basic records to know WHAT you've sent is just silly.

Then again if you do have a few million to burn I guess it doesn't matter but I don't think you do and I urge you to save what you have.

I'm pretty sure that you'll ignore this advice and post because you do that with anything you don't want to hear, but I wanted to make my position clear. You're wasting your time. Learn some stuff.

Excuse the tone of this post. It is no harsher than I have seen used with many many new posters recently guys, and frankly just because Kevin has been a member for a while I don't see the need to sugar coat it.

 

[nickvc]

Kevin I like your enthuasiasm but I will point out a few things I feel aren't right in your overall view.
The first massive error was in your last paragraph where you say you melt into bars and ship using just xrf results, bad mistake there needs to be proper assays done and the bars need to be very large to make the whole process cost effective. The so called refiners of boards rarely refine but incinerate, crush and sort the magnetics off and sieve to remove ash and the metallics are then melted, the ash can also contain values so again mixing, sampling and assaying is also needed there. I hope your aware that the copper refiners take at least 90 days plus to settle and that certain elements can incur penalty charges if over certain percentages.
Make sure you stay within accepted discharge levels and try to be one step ahead of any regulations to avoid trouble that could shut you down at best. This particular venture is going to be very capital intensive and the equipment will be highly expensive if you want to operate correctly and avoid problems with your local authorities. The bottom line is that you could spend loads of money and still fail to run your plant without trouble or with decent returns to recover your investment. My advice for what it's worth is hire a professional to design a plant and recommend the right equipment and to actually get it running efficiently, it's expensive but cheap if it does the job while trying to do this yourself on the cheap could end up been very expensive if it all fails to work.

 

[kjavanb123]

All,

Thanks for your input regarding this post, here my response to your opinions.

1- Total equipment costs so far including incinerator, bag house, and induction furnace amount to $20,000
So it is not even into $100,000.

2- What I read in chapter XVIII in Hoke's book and whatever from GoldSilverPro in this forum, the outline for processing ewaste is incineration, ball mill, seive mesh 10, melt the metallics on top of sieve, sample and fire assay ash thst goes through, sell to copper smelters, I am sure they will do some advanced payment based on sample analysis.

3- According to local trading shops, some 20 metric tonnes ewaste had been exported from here which government put a ban on export. As of now I have 300 kg non Chinese motherboards, 102 kg Chinese motherboards along with 1032 kg electronic boards and some 500 kg of telecomm boards, which I am planning to process using above method.

Just wanted to share with everyone the incinerator gas analysis.

Regards
Kevin

 

[CBentre]

Kevin, the best advice I can offer is to check with your local environmental agency before you get to far ahead of yourself. If they are banning exports it's for good reason and they may already have other safeguards in place for local businesses. I do admire your desire to accomplish what you have started but sometimes you just have to take a step back and put everything into perspective. The last thing you would want is to have invested your life savings into something that you simply cannot move forward with. I've been following your post and your rushing through a lot of this in a short period of time. I don't mean for this to sound rude but take baby steps. ...work on one thing at a time and once your 100% satisfied with the results move onto the next task. Keep in mind this dosn't mean results as in a profitable one more as a result that everything your doing has met all health and safety standards, environmental standards and last but not least you will still become successful and profitable in what your doing. The most famous quote I will remember my entire life is "Rome wasn't built in a day" and these words hold true for some of the most successful people in the world. I wish you the best in your adventure but please make sure you do your do-diligence not only for your safety but for the safety of others around you.

 

[kjavanb123]

All,

Thanks all for your suggestions, as continuation to this post I like to update you regarding this. After some research I contacted some Chinese companies that build tire/plastic pyrolysis plant and some of them claimes they can and have used the same pyrolysis machine to process scrap Printed circuit boards with 20% oil yield and some carbon.
I am looking to that and also an incinerator plus bag house locally will post results soon.

Regards
Kevin

 

[kjavanb123]

All,

After a while sample of 2200 lbs of boards which I had sent out to an incinerator manufactorer has arrived, it is very soft and copper seemed to be oxided as it has been sitting outside after incineration, but picked up couple of ICs and seems to be white inside out and very soft, all commercial refining owners is this what fully incinerated circuit boards will look like?
If it is, then should ball or rod mill be my next step?

Closer look at the incinerated circuit boards,


Some of ICs I could recognize that were completely incinerated to white ash,


Thanks for your comments.
Kevin