India generates around 3.2 million tons per year of electronic waste, which contains many precious materials like gold, palladium, silver etc. in addition to hazardous materials that can cause irreparable health hazards to the human being. To recover valuable metals such as copper, silver and gold from obsolete printed circuit boards (PCBs) in an environment-friendly way, a PCB Recycling facility was inaugurated at the Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (C-MET), in Hyderabad on Friday.
C-MET, an autonomous scientific society under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), has established the Center of Excellence (CoE) on E-waste Management, a first of its kind in the country under PPP model. The facility has the capacity of recycling 100 kg PCBs/day.
Rich in metal content, PCBs are considered a high-value waste. But other than some precious metals, rare metals and base metals, PCBs also contain some toxic elements. As these toxic substances found in PCB can cause irreversible damage to the human body and environment, the same should be recycled in a proper way.
The PCB recycling technology developed by CoE is at Technology Readiness Level 6 stage and now ready for commercialization. C-MET has not only developed recycling technologies but also designed and fabricated necessary processing equipment for the same. CoE on E-waste management has developed all varieties of e-waste recycling technologies viz. spent PCB, Li-Ion Battery, Permanent magnet and Si-solar cells etc.
Alkesh Kumar Sharma, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), inaugurated the 1Ton/day PCB Recycling facility at the Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (C-MET), in Hyderabad today. Sharma said: “The Ministry has introduced SPECS scheme for helping e-waste recycling industries to set up their plant in India instead of sending the e-waste materials outside for recycling. This indigenously developed e-waste recycling technologies will give a fillip to India’s Mission to Atmanirbharata and circular economy.”
C-MET has three R&D laboratories located at Hyderabad, Pune & Thrissur focusing on different thrust areas on critical electronic materials. As a circular economy approach towards e-waste management will play an important role in resource efficiency, reduction in pollution, recovery of precious materials and minimization of health hazards, C-MET, Hyderabad lab is focused on the development of high purity, semiconductors and strategic materials including metals and alloys. It is also focused on developing environmentally benign e-waste recycling technologies to promote resource efficiency and a circular economy in the country.
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