An Evaluation of Potential Yield of Indium Recycled from Waste Mobile Phone in China

Abstract

In recent years, users replace their mobile phone more and more frequently, therefore, the number of waste mobile phones has been increasing year by year. In 2014, the number was more than 1 billion units. Indium, that has unique optical transparency and electrical conduction properties, is a necessary element in the screen of mobile phone. The potential yield of indium recycled from waste mobile phone is considerable. Recycling indium from waste mobile phones can alleviate the constraints of indium resources while gaining great economic benefit. However, there is no relevant research work to evaluate the potential yield of indium in the waste cell phone. This paper explores the main factors that constraint the efficiency of recycling by predicting potential yield of indium recycled from waste mobile phone, and puts forward the corresponding policy recommendations. The results are based on the Logistic model and Stock-base model and a survey. The results show that the potential yield of indium recycled from waste mobile phone from 2015 to 2035 will increase from 8.7 tonnes to 10.2 tonnes in China. However, the recovery rate of waste mobile phone is very low, the actual available amount is far lower than the potential yield of indium. The main factors that constrain the efficiency of recycling are: (1) it is difficult to guarantee information security; (2) the existing recycling system is not perfect; (3) the technology of recycling indium needs to be improved.