According to statistics from the International Telecommunication Union, the world generates more than 50 million tons of electronic waste each year, of which waste printed circuit boards (PCBs) account for about 10%, and increase at a rate of 5%-8% per year. These circuit boards contain polybrominated diphenyl ethers, heavy metals (such as lead, mercury, cadmium) and other harmful substances. If traditional landfill methods are used, the soil half-life of lead is as long as 2000 years, and the volatilization of mercury can cause the surrounding atmospheric mercury concentration to exceed the standard by 3-5 times; incineration will release dioxins, which are 1000 times more toxic than cyanide, posing a long-term threat to the ecological environment and human health. Waste printed circuit boards are actually "urban mines" with huge economic value. Take 1 ton of waste circuit boards as an example, which contains an average of 130-180 kg of copper, 0.4-0.8 kg of gold, and 5-10 kg of silver. The metal recycling part alone, calculated at the current market price, can create about 30,000-50,000 yuan in revenue per ton. According to industry organizations, the global potential market size of PCB metal recycling exceeds 50 billion yuan per year.
Not only that, Yongte Plastic Machinery's wood-plastic board production line has further expanded the economic value space by making efficient use of non-metallic materials of waste circuit boards. Non-metallic materials account for more than 60% of the total amount of waste circuit boards. If efficient recycling can be achieved, only the reused non-metallic materials can create an economic value of about 3,000-5,000 yuan per ton, calculated at the current market price, and the global potential market size of non-metallic materials for PCBs has exceeded 10 billion yuan per year. Take the introduction of Yongte Plastic Machinery production line by an electronic recycling company as an example. The company processes 50,000 tons of waste circuit boards every year, of which 30,000 tons of non-metallic materials are used to produce wood-plastic boards. In addition to saving 45 million yuan in raw material procurement costs, the sales of wood-plastic boards also brought in an additional 75 million yuan in revenue, with significant comprehensive economic benefits. The wood-plastic board production line developed by Yongte Plastic Machinery breaks through the bottleneck of the industry with technological innovation. It adopts a three-stage crushing and sorting system, using eddy current sorting technology and high-voltage electrostatic separation technology to increase the separation purity of non-metallic materials in circuit boards to more than 98.5%; the equipped twin-screw compounding extruder adopts a modular design, which can achieve precise control of temperature gradient (error ±1℃), so that the non-metallic materials of waste circuit boards and thermoplastics such as polypropylene (PP) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) can be fully melted and blended at 180-220℃. According to third-party testing, the density of the wood-plastic board produced by the production line reaches 1.2-1.4g/cm³, the bending strength is ≥45MPa, and the impact strength is ≥18kJ/m². All indicators are better than the national standard GB/T 24137-2009 "Wood-plastic Decorative Board".
In terms of cost control, the production line's original energy recovery system reuses 30% of the heat energy in the production process through the waste heat recovery device, reducing the unit product energy consumption to 85-95kW・h/t, which is 25% less than the traditional process. Based on an annual output of 50,000 tons of wood-plastic boards, 30,000 tons of waste circuit board non-metallic materials can be consumed each year, saving more than 45 million yuan in raw material procurement costs; at the same time, carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by about 82,000 tons, which is equivalent to planting 4.5 million mature trees.In addition, Yongte Plastic Machinery's production line has highly flexible production capabilities. By changing molds and adjusting process parameters, it can quickly switch to produce more than 10 different specifications of wood-plastic panels, with a production efficiency of 300-500kg/h, and the overall equipment operating efficiency (OEE) remains above 85%. Its intelligent control system integrates Internet of Things technology, which can realize real-time monitoring of equipment status and fault warning, extend the equipment maintenance cycle by 40%, and reduce maintenance costs by 35%.
Yongte Plastic Machinery's wood-plastic panel production line is driven by technological innovation. While resolving the environmental crisis of waste printed circuit boards, it has built a closed-loop economic model of "resources-products-renewable resources", providing a replicable and sustainable solution for the resource utilization of electronic waste, and is leading the industry towards green smart manufacturing.
