Distributed Activation Energy Modeling and Py-GC/MS Studies on Pyrolysis of Different Printed Circuit Boards for Resource Recovery

[Image: see text] Printed circuit boards (PCBs) constitute an important segment of electronic waste that can be effectively utilized to recover valuable metals and organics. The present work is focused on the kinetics and product distribution from pyrolysis of three different PCB samples, viz., television PCB (TV PCB), motherboard PCB (MB PCB), and hard disk PCB (HD PCB). The PCBs were pretreated to eliminate most of the metallic constituents. Kinetic analysis was performed using Vyazovkin’s isoconversional method and distributed activation energy model (DAEM). The average apparent activation energies obtained from the Vyazovkin method were 207.2, 158.9, and 179.7 kJ mol(–1) for the TV PCB, MB PCB, and HD PCB, respectively. The DAEM with five, four, and four pseudo-components was used to describe the decomposition kinetics of the TV PCB, MB PCB, and HD PCB, respectively. Importantly, two types of distributions, viz., Gaussian and Weibull, were utilized to effectively model the nonisothermal data obtained from thermogravimetric analysis at 10 and 20 °C min(–1). The evolution of pyrolysates belonging to functional groups such as phenolics, aromatics, aliphatics, halogenated compounds, N-containing compounds, and oxygenates was studied at two different temperatures (500 and 700 °C) using analytical pyrolysis–gas chromatograph/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS). The Py-GC/MS results demonstrated an increase in selectivity to aromatics and straight-chain aliphatics at 700 °C with a concomitant decrease in selectivity to phenols and oxygenates.