Carbon Footprint Assessment of Waste PCB Recycling Through Black … 109

of each copper production, the carbon footprints of waste PCB recycling process in
Australia were established.

Process Description

In this study, a pyrometallurgical route of the secondary copper smelting process,

often known as the black copper smelting process, was selected for the carbon foot-
print assessment. The definition of secondary copper is based on the input feed
material of the process, which mostly comes from a secondary source such as copper
scrap and waste PCB. In industrial practice, waste PCB can be mixed with other
base metal scraps such as copper, lead, and nickel for the metals recovery process.
The primary input of the process is copper scrap, waste PCB, flux, metallurgical
coke, and air. The waste PCB recycling through the black copper smelting process
consists of four stages including reduction, oxidation, electrorefining, and precious
metal refining process. The first stage is the reduction process in which the input
materials are added to a reduction furnace and treated under a reducing condition at
1300 °C. The product of the reduction process is also known as black copper. The
black copper is transferred to the next process of oxidation, where the impurities
such as Zn, Sn, and Pb are separated from liquid copper and removed as gas phases
or slag. It should be noted that in industrial practice, the reduction and oxidation
processes can take place in a single reactor or two separate reactors. The anode
liquid copper from the oxidation process is then purified through an electrorefining
process to produce a higher purity of cathode copper up to 99.9%. The slime, which
contains precious metals, as a by-product of the electrorefining process, is collected
and treated to recover precious metals such as gold and silver. The process flowsheet
and mass balance of the waste PCB recycling through black copper smelting can
be found in Fig. 1. The mass balance equation of black copper smelting process is
adopted from [5].

Methodology

Goal Definition

The goal of the study is to assess the environmental impact of waste PCB recy-
cling through black copper smelting process in the context of Australia. The overall
carbon footprint of different scenarios of waste PCB recycling in Australia was calcu-
lated. The procedure used to quantify the carbon footprint in this study was based on
the Australian National Greenhouse Account Factor [9]. A wide range of Life Cycle
Inventory (LCI) data for the analysis was taken from the literature and Ecoinvent
database.