Potential recycling availability and capacity assessment on typical metals in waste mobile phones: A current research study in China

Abstract

Mobile phone is the most commonly used electrical and electronic equipment all over the world, resulting in the generation of a large quantity of waste mobile phones (WMPs). Manual dismantling and experimental analysis were carried out to identify the physical composition and content of 10 typical metals in printed circuited boards (PCB) from WMPs. The results showed that the content of Au ranged from 0.86 mg/g to1.60 mg/g per PCB, from 0.14 to 5.8 mg/g for Ag, 14.1–28.5 mg/g for Ni, 0.04–0.4 mg/g for Pb, and 33.9–60.1 mg/g for Sn. The amount of Cu remained stable, at 259–550 mg/g, but Pd was not detected in any of the selected samples. Taking the predicted quantities of waste metals from WMPs in 2025 in China as an example, a considerable amount of metals could be potentially recovered from PCBs, including about 9.01 t (metric ton) of Au, and 14.91 t of Ag, based on the assumption of 100% recycling. The ratio of recycled Au to global Au production would have grown at a rate between 0.07 and 0.19%, from 2010 to 2015. Recycling all of the ten metals studied would yield a profit of more than 300 million dollars by 2025. The potential amount of Au recycled from WMPs could provide about 10% of the global Au demand for electronics manufacturing, making this metal definitely worth recycling.