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Recycling of Electronic Scrap at Umicore.

Precious Metals Refining
Conference Paper in Acta Metallurgica Slovaca June 2006

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Recycling of Electronic Scrap

Recycling of Electronic Scrap at Umicore Precious Metals Refining

Dr. Christian Hagelken
Umicore Precious Metals Refining
A. Greinerstraat 14
B-2660 Hoboken, Belgium
christian.hagelueken@eu.umicore.com

Abstract
With the new legislation for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) coming up in Europe a substantial increase of end-of-life electronic equipment to be treated will take place. In this context, often much
attention is placed on logistical issues, dismantling and shredding/pre-processing of electronic-scrap,
whereas the final, physical metals recovery step in a smelter is often just taken for granted.
However, a state-of-the-art smelter and refinery process has a major impact on recycling efficiency, in terms
of elements and value that are recovered as well as in terms of toxic control and overall environmental performance. Umicore has recently completed major investments at its Hoboken plant, where besides precious
metals and copper a large variety of base and special metals are recovered. Equipped with state-of the art
off-gas and waste water purification installations, the plant has been developed to the globally most advanced full-scale processor of various precious metals containing secondary materials such as automotive
catalysts and electronic-scrap, generating optimum metal yields at increased productivity. To utilise this potential to its full extend for WEEE fractions like circuit boards or mobile phones, especially the interface between pre-processing (shredding/sorting) and smelting/refining is of importance. Here, a mutual optimisation
of sorting depth as well as of destination of the various fractions produced can lead to a substantial increase
in overall yields, especially for precious and special metals.

Introduction

Umicore is a speciality materials group. Its activities are centred on four business areas: Precious Metals
Services, Precious Metals Products and Catalysts, Advanced Materials and Zinc Specialities. Each business
area is divided into market-focused business units. The company focuses on application areas where its
experience in materials science, chemistry and metallurgy can make a real difference. The Umicore Group
has industrial operations on all continents and serves a global customer base; it generated a turnover of
EUR 6.6 billion in 2005 and currently employs some 14,000 people. In 2003 Umicore took over the former
Degussa precious metals activities.
The business unit Umicore Precious Metals Refining operates at Hoboken near Antwerp, Belgium, an integrated metals smelter and refinery, which recovers and sells a wide range of metals from complex precious
metals bearing materials: gold, silver and the platinum group metals (PGMs: palladium, platinum, rhodium,
iridium, ruthenium), special metals (selenium, tellurium, indium), secondary metals (antimony, tin, arsenic,
bismuth) and base metals (copper, lead, nickel). Other by-products of the plant are sulphuric acid (from
offgas-purification) and a depleted slag, which is used as construction material and in the concrete industry.
Important feed materials are various industrial wastes and by-products from other non-ferrous industries
(e.g. drosses, mattes, speiss, anode slimes), precious metals sweeps & bullions, spent industrial catalysts,
as well as consumer recyclables such as car exhaust catalysts or printed circuit boards/ electronic components. In total over 250,000 t of feed-materials are treated annually in a highly flexible flowsheet whilst generating minimal waste. The plant is one of the world's largest precious metals recycling facilities with a capacity of over 50 t PGMs, over 100 t of gold and 2400 t of silver. [1]

Waste - Secondary Raw Materials III, Strbske Pleso, June 2006

Christian Hagelken

Figure 1: Aerial view of Umicore's Hoboken plant

Flowsheet

Basically the recycling operations at the Hoboken Works are streamlined along two processes: The Precious
Metals Operations (PMO) are fully tuned for the efficient refining of an extended range of complex and valuable raw materials, containing precious metals. The Base Metals Operations focus on flexibly, cost-efficient
processing of by-products from the PMO. Major investments of 200 million have been recently completed,
to develop, install and run new metallurgical operations, completely shifting Hobokens focus from mining
concentrates to recyclable materials and industrial by-products.
Over the past decade a completely
renewed plant has been built on site. The
processes are based on complex
lead/copper/nickel metallurgy, using these
base metals as collectors for precious
metals and special metals, such as Sb,
Bi, Sn, Se, Te, In. The main advantage of
the innovated plant is increased
productivity, combined with greater
efficiency, which results in maximised
metal recovery rates. Complex feed
materials, which often contain certain
elements of concern, are systematically
worked upon and turned into recycled,
useful products (figs. 2 & 3).

Figure 2: New flowsheet for Umicore's

integrated metals smelter and refinery

Recycling of Electronic Scrap

Fe
Zn Ir Hg HC Rh
Pt Ni SiO2
Te Se
Pb
Ru
As
AgCo Au Cu S Bi
Sn Pd
Sb C Cd In Al2O3

Au

Ir

Clean off gas

Rh
Te

Recovery of
Metals & Energy

Controlled
depot

Pt

Pb

Ni

In
Base & Special Metals

Precious Metals

Pb, Cu, Ni,

Sb, Sn, Bi, Se, In, Te, As

Ag, Au,
,
Pt, Pd, Rh, Ir,, Ru

Dykefill
Betogrind

Ru

Cu

Ag

Clean waste water

Umicore Process
Sulfuric
Acid

Pd Se

Sb
Bi
Sn

As

Figure 3: Principle Input-Output streams for Umicore's integrated metals smelter and refinery;
Cu/Pb/Ni are used to collect precious and special metals

Sampling and assaying

The extended, continuously changing mix of complex feed materials such as e-scrap, catalysts, tankhouse
slimes, etc. make sampling and assaying a key success factor for sustainable precious metals recycling. An
accurate determination of the exact composition and the precious metal content of the received materials is
crucial to enable a correct settlement with the customers, but also to steer the optimum processing of the
material through the plant. The sampling and assaying processes are continuously innovated in close collaboration with the suppliers, most of the technologies applied are in-house developed. Automation and information management are important supporting tools to achieve maximum accuracy. The full range of industrial by-products and recyclable materials are sampled on site. The operations undergo independent,
internal and external assessments regularly.

Shredding to max.
size 4 x 4 cm
Stream sampling
Shredding to 7x 7 mm
Rotating tube divider
Final sample
preparation

Figure 4: Flowsheet for sampling of circuit boards

To obtain a truly representative sample for circuit boards, 100% of the boards are shredded down to a size
of 4 x 4 cm, the primary sample from this first step is then reshredded to 7 x 7 mm, after which a secondary
sample is taken and further prepared to obtain a lab-sample for analysis (fig. 4). Other than in preprocessing, shredding is applied here only to reduce the size of the material, so that representative increments can be taken. Sorting out of any materials or fractions does not take place, everything is subsequently
treated in the smelter operations.

Waste - Secondary Raw Materials III, Strbske Pleso, June 2006

Christian Hagelken
4

Smelting and Refining

The main processing steps of the Precious Metals Operations (PMO) are the smelter, the copper-leaching &
electro winning plant and the precious metals refinery. The operations are designed in such a way that raw
materials can enter the flow-sheet at the most optimal process step, determined by their physical aspect,
their analytical fingerprint and their (precious) metals value. The smelter furnace uses the IsaSmelt, submerged lance combustion technology (fig. 5). This involves injecting oxygen-enriched air and fuel in a molten
bath and adding coke as a reducing agent for the metals. Plastics or other organic substances that are contained in the feed partially substitute the coke as reducing agent and fuel as energy source. The smelter
separates precious metals in a copper bullion from mostly all other metals concentrated in a lead slag, which
is further treated at the Base Metals Operations. After leaching out the copper in the leaching and copperelectro winning plant (fig 5), the precious metals are collected in a residue that is further refined at the precious metals refinery. This combines classical methods (cupellation) with unique in-house developed processes (silver refinery) to enable the in-house recovery of all possible variations and ratios of silver, gold and
the platinum group metals (platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium and ruthenium).
The main processing steps of the Base Metals Operations (BMO) are the lead blast furnace, the lead refinery and the special metals plant. The lead blast furnace reduces the oxidised lead slag from the smelter
together with high lead containing third party raw materials and transforms them into impure lead bullion,
nickel speiss, copper matte and depleted slag. The impure lead bullion, collecting most of the non-precious
metals, is further treated in the lead refinery (Harris process). Besides pure lead and sodium antimonate the
process generates special metals residues, further refined into pure metals (indium, selenium, tellurium) in
the special metals refinery. Bismuth and tin intermediates are tolled out to dedicated companies to produce
pure metals which are marketed by Umicore.
After leaching the nickel out of the nickel speiss and turning it into nickel sulphate at Umicore's Olen plant,
the remaining precious metals residue is treated at the precious metals refinery. The copper matte from the
lead blast furnace returns to the IsaSmelt furnace. The depleted blast furnace slag is physically calibrated for
use in the concrete industry or used as dyke fortification substance.

Oxygen enriched air and oil/nat. gas

are injected down the lance

Offgas and fume: special design for

efficient offgas collection with minimised
solids carryover

Agglomerated
feed
can be directly
charged without
further treatment

Refractory lined
furnace
designed to
facilitate
refractory
installation

Watercooled
taphole

Patented lance design

Promotes formation of a
frozen slag layer on the
lance tip

Frozen slag coating

Protects lance from wear

Vigorously stirred bath

by submerged lance
ensuring rapid chemical
reactions and good mixing

for molten product

removal

Figure 5: Umicore's IsaSmelt furnace (left and centre) and electrowinning plant (right)

The Umicore process with its various 'scavenger steps' achieves high overall recovery yields for the precious
metals, since - independent which way they take through the flowsheet (Cu, Pb, Ni) - they finally are all
separated and enter into the precious metals refinery.

Recycling of Electronic Scrap

5

Environment, Health and Safety

As for Umicore as a whole, Umicore Precious Metals Refining is committed to responsible, proactive and
transparent management of environmental issues. An environmental management system according to ISO
14001 has been implemented at Hoboken in close connection with the quality system (ISO 9001). The environmental performance of the plant is continuously monitored, installations and procedures are continuously
being adapted to new legislation in compliance with the European and even stricter Flemish legal environmental requirements. All relevant data are reported to the Flemish authorities in detail and to the public in an
annual environmental report. Since 1995 over 100 million have been invested in continuous improvement
of the plant's environmental performance.
Air: Hygienic gases and process gases are cooled with energy recovery and cleaned using 'Best Available
Techniques' (BAT). Sulphur present in some feed materials is converted into SO2, which is transformed to
sulphuric acid in the "contact" plant - the gas treatment and contact process acting as a "perfect filter". On
the stack, SO2 and NOx are continuously monitored with a direct display of the measured value in the control
rooms, so that the operators can react immediately (see fig. 6). Diffuse emissions from stockyards and roads
are abated by intensive sprinkling, using either fixed sprinkling systems or watering carts. Further measures
in place include dust free emptying of shipped drums or big bags, dust free sampling procedures, storage of
critical materials in containers inside a warehouse, emptying of the containers under aspiration, transport in
covered belt systems etc. Besides their environmental importance these installations also prevent any losses
of precious metals with the dust fraction, which further improves sampling accuracy and metal yields. Thanks
to these continuous measures, plant emissions are already very low and further show a decreasing trend.
Water: Not only process water, but also cooling water, all rainwater, sprinkling water, etc. is treated in an
onsite BAT waste water treatment plant (WWTP): acids are neutralised, metals, sulphates and fluorine are
removed by physical chemistry processes. Two thirds of the cleaned water is reused internally while one
third is discharged into the river Scheldt.
Soil: All stockyards are provided with a contained concrete floor, all rain and sprinkling water are collected
and treated in the WWTP. The historical soil contamination in the plant is being controlled and huge areas
are being covered with brick rubble to prevent dust generation. Contaminated groundwater is drained away
and treated in the WWTP. A project to rehabilitate the adjacent residential area is ongoing.
Waste: Much is done to find useful applications for all plant outputs: sulphuric acid is sold to the market,
depleted slag is further used, covered by certificates issued by the Flamish authorities. Waste, containing
elements that can't be recycled any further, adds up to only 4 % of the incoming material and is disposed of
in duly licensed landfills. A project to decrease further the amount of waste for landfills is ongoing.
Stack

Stack
Continuous
measurement
of SO 2, NO X

Filter dust

Bag
house
filter

Hygienic
gasses

Monthly
measurement of
dust, metals, SO 2 ,
NO X , CO, C tot

Figure 6:

Dust

Isa- Process
Smelter gasses

Radiation
chambre

Heat recovery:
High pressure steam
for internal use

Adiabatic
cooler

Electrostatic
precipitator

Quenching

Water to Water
Treatment Plant

Sulphuric
Acid
Plant

Continuous
sampling for
dioxin
detection

Periodic
measurement of
dust, metals,
H2 SO 4, NO X , CO,
Ctot ,, HF, HCl

Offgas emission control installations at the IsaSmelt furnace

Waste - Secondary Raw Materials III, Strbske Pleso, June 2006

Christian Hagelken
6

Processing of electronic scrap at Umicore Hoboken

Umicore sources its recycling materials on a world-wide basis and provides customised solutions to manufacturers, collectors, pre-processors and other stakeholders of the electronics lifecycle, making use of an
international network of sales offices and partners. To fully benefit from economies of scale, all endprocessing takes part at the Hoboken plant for a wide range of electronic materials, which can be categorised under different aspects.
Value of material
Keeping in mind that "low" and "high" value or grade are relative terms only, even a "high value" electronic
scrap is low value compared e.g. to a precious metal catalyst. E-scrap usually is grouped by the Au-content.
The following examples give some general indications:
- Low value (< 100 ppm Au): TV-boards, monitor boards, (cordless) phones, calculators, shredded bulk
material after Al-/Fe-separation, etc.
- Medium value (100-400 ppm Au): PC-boards, laptop-and handheld-computers, mobile phones, etc.
- High value (> 400 ppm Au): Circuit boards from main-frames, some mobile phones, ICs, MLCCs
Origin of material (production residues or end-of-life streams)
Typical production residues treated by Umicore are populated or unpopulated circuit boards, precious metal
containing punchings and lead frames, multi-layer ceramic capacitors (MLCC), IC's, certain automotive electronic components, but also overstock and obsolete materials of small devices like mobile phones, calculators, handheld or laptop computers, digital cameras etc. After removal of batteries and sampling, these small
devices can be treated directly in the IsaSmelt furnace. Important for production waste is a guaranteed, controlled and well-documented destruction and recycling, safely excluding any unwanted re-use of parts.
End-of-life (EOL) streams are supplied by collection schemes, pre-processors, traders and sometimes also
by manufacturers who operate individual take-back systems. With the exception of some small devices (mobile phones etc.) EOL streams have been dismantled and/or pre-processed to remove large plastic parts,
iron and aluminium. Typical materials are printed circuit boards, cut-off parts relatively rich in precious metals
or fractions deriving from shredding and mechanical sorting processes such as metallic granules (mostly
copper based), mixed plastics fractions with residual metals, and (precious) metals containing dusts. Pelletisation of such dust can facilitate sampling and treatment.
As it will be elaborated in the following chapter, mechanical pre-processing has to be conducted in a way
that the loss of valuable (precious) metals into sidestreams, from which they cannot be recovered any more
is minimised. WEEE contains significant amounts of pollutants as well as high burnloss constituents like
plastics. Plastic fractions contain halogens from flame retardants and thus require special installations in a
metallurgical operation to safely prevent the emission of dioxins, furanes or other harmful elements. If, as it
is the case for Umicore's Hoboken smelter, such installations are existing, plastics can be utilised partly as
coke and fuel substitute (feedstock-recycling), which can positively affect the calculation of recycling rates.
Prior to sampling at Hoboken, the material is stored in a secured area. All material streams are traceable
and can be demonstrated to the relevant authorities and to suppliers transparently. The settlement of a recycling lot with the supplier/customer usually is conducted as a toll refining transaction on an assay based formula, refining terms comprise treatment and refining charges, metal credits (in % of analytical value) and
return times for the metals. Additionally, other services like early hedging, financing, metal account management and logistical assistance are offered. Some (very) low-grade fractions of electronic scrap, where
the net intrinsic metals value after deduction of treatment costs is negative, are also taken in against a gate
fee (in which the metal value is incorporated). Typical examples are metal contaminated mixed plastic fractions. Nevertheless, supplying such material for the customer often is overall more eco-efficient than - usually complex - mechanical separation of the metals with a subsequent feed of the mixed plastics into a municipal incinerator (again, at a gate fee there), where the metals are lost.

Recycling of Electronic Scrap

Figure 7: Photos of some electronic materials/fractions treated by Umicore

Recycling chain for electronic scrap

The recycling chain for WEEE consists of different, usually subsequent steps, which are collection, dismantling, shredding/pre-processing, and end-processing of the various materials and metals. The final, physical
recovery step at the end-processor - transferring specific WEEE-fractions like circuit boards into refined metals - is crucial for value recovery, and also the environmental impacts connected with end-processing can be
quite substantial (both positively and negatively). In today's discussion on the optimisation of WEEErecycling, raising attention is put on maximising eco-efficiency, i.e. the environmental and economical balance, by maximising physical recycling and revenues obtainable thereof, while minimising environmental
burden and total costs connected with the recycling chain. Due to the considerable environmental impacts of
mining and refining precious metals from primary ores, a high overall recycling yield of the precious metals
has not only economical but also large ecological benefits (recycling 1 kg of gold also ecologically is much
more beneficial than recycling 1 kg of iron). In a solely weight based calculation of recycling quotes - as it
presently prevails in the WEEE-Directive - this effect is not considered accordingly.
A holistic optimisation of WEEE recycling has to consider the entire recycling chain, considering the interdependencies between the main steps and including all generated sidestreams. Much more attention in this
context should be placed on the interfaces. Whatever is done e.g. in pre-processing influences the performance of the subsequent end-processing steps and thus the total chain results. Especially between modern
integrated metals smelters and dedicated shredding and sorting plants, further improvement can be
achieved by mutual optimisation of sorting depth as well as composition and destination of the various fractions produced. Pre-processing usually includes coarse shredding, often followed by some manual sorting,
further size reduction, and mechanical separation techniques. Here, typically magnetic sorting and eddy
current separation of aluminium and other non-ferrous metals are applied, sometimes in combination with
further processing steps (heavy media separation, air tables, sifting etc.). Like in mineral processing of ores,
also for electronic scrap the concentration-yield function applies, as is schematically shown in fig. 8.

PM-loss %

Concentration rate* %

The basic rule is that the recovery rate for a specific metal (or material) from an input stream is decreasing
with a rising concentration rate (purity) of that metal separated into an output fraction. From the perspective
of a targeted metal in an output fraction this 'concentration dilemma' means that the more complete
A less complete separation of Fe, Al,
plastics can significantly reduce PMthis metal is separated from an input stream, the
losses by unintended co-separation
more it will be contaminated after separation by non
PM
target material. When separating several major
The
e.g.
separating Cu + PM
metals (with respect to their share in the feed) in
concentration
from feed into own fraction
dilemma
subsequent processing steps from a complex feed
Recovery rate** %
material, the unintended co-separation of 'minor'
Fe 100% Al
100% plastics 100%
* in output fraction
Recovery rate per
metals can add up substantially. [4]
** of target metal
individually separated material %

Figure 8: Interface optimisation between mechanical pre-processing and metallurgical refining

Waste - Secondary Raw Materials III, Strbske Pleso, June 2006

Christian Hagelken
In the concrete case of electronic scrap this means that the mechanical separation of Fe, Al and plastics
always bears the risk of inevitably losing precious metals (PMs) in these streams. All these losses add up
and reduce the overall PM-yield of pre-processing, which generally aims to concentrate the PMs in a copper
fraction. Accepting higher impurities of Fe, Al and plastics in the copper fraction can boost the overall PM
recovery and thus the generated value. In the case of circuit boards or small devices with a relatively high
concentration of PMs, further shredding and sorting out Fe, Al and plastics in many cases even can be
counter-productive. In circuit boards most PMs are strongly interlinked with plastics, ceramcics or NF-metals,
part of them easily go into dusts, others follow the Fe-fraction and the Al. Especially eddy current separation
in many cases is not selective enough for these materials and significant portions of circuit board pieces can
be contained in the "Al-fraction". Optical sorting or other scavenging processes can be applied, but usually
the better solution is to directly treat circuit boards and small devices in an efficient metallurgical process,
which was designed to maximise PM-yields and "co-separates" other metals by metallurgical means. A case
study from TU-Delft has proven, that this "direct smelter route" for a mobile phone is the most eco-efficient
solution (after having removed the battery). [3], [5]
Another field of interface optimisation are mixed plastic fractions with metal residues from pre-processing. In
most cases it is not economically feasible to further separate these into the various plastic types. The most
common outlets for these mixed fractions, landfill or incineration plants are becoming increasingly restricted
and costly under the recent legislative developments. Furthermore, all residual metals would be inevitably
lost. Separating residual metals by mechanical means can become quite costly while generating only little
additional metal value. If some minimum contents of valuable metals are included, a dedicated preparation
of these fractions to make them fit into an integrated smelter is a possibility that should be considered on a
case to case basis. There will be no general solution but individual best routes depending on type of WEEE,
companies involved and also regional aspects. Requirements in this context are an open dialogue and cooperative approach between the relevant stakeholders, as well as transparent material flows up to the final
destinations, which until now is often not the case.

Conclusions

Integrated metals smelters are a crucial part of the WEEE-recycling chain, which can further increase its
efficiency if interfaces to pre-processing are consequently optimised. Their ability to recover numerous metals at high yields and without any "downcycling" in quality can contribute to a significant future supply of secondary metals. Moreover, such operations can offer possibilities to utilise plastic fractions contained in
WEEE as feedstock substitute for coke. However, it has to be understood that by far not any "copper
smelter" can treat electronic scrap in an environmentally sound way. Only a handfull of integrated smelters
and refiners in the world have the necessary installations for offgas and waste water purification. Umicore's
Hoboken plant has been developed to the globally most advanced full-scale processor of various precious
metals containing fractions from electronic scrap, generating optimum metal yields at competitive terms.

References
[1]

Hagelken, C: Recycling of electronic scrap at Umicore's integreated metals smelter and refinery, proceedings of
EMC 2005, vol. 1, pp. 307-323, Dresden Sept. 2005.

[2]

Where are WEEE going?, Proceedings of a workshop at Antwerp, Umicore, Oct. 2004. (CD-ROM)

[3]

Van Heukelem, A., M. Reuter et. al.: Eco efficient optimization of pre-processing and metal smelting, Electronic
Goes Green 2004+, Proceedings, pp. 657-661, Berlin 2004.

[4]

Hagelken, C: Improving metal returns and eco-efficiency in electronics recycling, Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Electronics & the Environment IEEE, pp.218-223, San Francisco May 2006.

[5]

Huisman, J.: QWERTY and eco-efficiency analysis on cellular phone treatment in Sweden, TU Delft, April 2004.

[6]

http:/www.preciousmetals.umicore.com