Examining the feasibility of the urban mining of hard disk drives
Talens Peiró, Laura (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Enginyeria Química, Biològica i Ambiental)
Castro Girón, Alejandra (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Gabarrell Durany, Xavier (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)

Date:	2019
Abstract:	Cities are becoming one of the greatest generators of waste and thus a potential source of secondary materials. One of the most attractive waste streams in cities is waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) as they contain many valuable metals, mainly in the printed circuit board (PCB), with a high risk of a disruption in their supply. Many of the PCBs contained in small WEEE are separated by destructive operations, as the economic feasibility of their separation using non-destructive operations remains unclear. This paper examines the feasibility of separating the PCB and the permanent magnets (PMs) contained in hard disk drives (HDD) using non-destructive operations. The economic cost of separating these parts is evaluated by the disassembly sequences, the disassembly schemes, and using the 'ease of Disassembly Metric' (eDiM). In HDD, the economic cost for the non-destructive separation of the PCB is €0. 05 while the cost to harvest the PCB as well as the PMs is €0. 39. In both cases, such cost is well below the estimated economic value of the gold, silver, and palladium contained in the PCB (€0. 85). As a result, the paper concludes that the separation of the PCB and the PMs of HDDs is economically profitable. Measures for promoting the non-destructive separation of the PCBs and the PM of HDDs should be further promoted, as they could help improve the supply of secondary raw materials.
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552
Note:	Altres ajuts: Beatriu de Pinós 2016 BP 00132
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió acceptada per publicar
Subject:	Secondary raw materials ; Electronics ; E-waste management ; Industrial ecology ; Circular economy ; Critical raw materials
Published in:	Journal of cleaner production, vol. 248 (March 2020) , art. 119216, ISSN 1879-1786

DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119216

Postprint 21 p, 1.4 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA) > Sustainability and Environmental Protection (Sostenipra)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles