Comminution of particles from waste printed circuit boards

This research aimed to investigate the effect of different milling method applications, based on different principles and forces on the size reduction of particles generated from printed circuit boards (PCBs). First a shredder was used to prepare -10 mm PCB particles with 2 different exit sieve opening sizes. Using shredded particles, several different milling equipment, including hammer mills, rod mill and ring mill were tested separately and we evaluated the changes in particle size reduction, by plotting the cumulative particle size distributions as well as the reduction ratios. The impact force application by hammer milling showed the noticeable size reduction while the compression force application by rod milling and ring milling did not show any / significant size reduction.