Improved settings of a corona-electrostatic separator for copper concentration from waste printed circuit boards

Most of the useful materials in waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) are found on printed circuit boards (PCB), which correspond up to 3 wt% of all devices. This paper aimed to optimize the Cu concentration from waste PCB (WPCB) in a corona-electrostatic separator (CES) with four parameters, such as angle of corona electrode (alpha) and its distance (d1) as well as the electrostatic electrode (O) and its distance (d2). Also, highvoltage supply (U) and roll speed (n) were tested. The optimized parameters were applied in a real WPCB. The experimental results were analyzed statistically with the one-way Anova. The experimental data were discussed, and the results showed different Cu concentrations in each parameter. For alpha, (sic), d1 and, d2, the significant differences are for polymeric material found in conductive fractions. For U, as the high-voltage increases, a lower amount of polymers in conductive portions is found. For n, as the roll speed increases, the highest amount of polymers in conductive fractions, as well as the highest amount of Cu in common fractions, are obtained. The application of optimized parameters showed a 31% increase in Cu concentration, when compared to a condition found in the literature. The results after one-way Anova show that, of the six parameters analyzed, only four ((sic), d1, U and n) presented significant difference. In these cases, multiple comparison methods were used to identify the level of the factor that optimizes Cu recovery.