ELECTROVALUE

LECTROVALUE

Electric and Electronic Eco-Assembly Alternatives for the valorisation of end-of life products in the recycling market

OBJECTIVES:

The ELECTROVALUE project was submitted and approved by the European LIFE Program. The project will develop and improve the recycling market for the electrical and electronic (EE) products through the reuse and recovery of EE components, providing support to the electrical and electronic SMEs, in order to improve their competitiveness by adopting sustainable waste management, materials and process technologies by integrating Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and “valorisation” of end-of-life in electric and electronic products.

The project will aim at the recovery and reuse of the more used or high value EE components from a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) assembly and less available ones in the market and reusing them individually in other products. Available and/or improved disassembly techniques will be used to successfully remove the components and sort them in an appropriate way.

The market for these recovered parts will need to be shown that final products that use them will present the reliability expected. Therefore the project addresses this by carrying out soldering trials, LCA and testing the reliability of refurbishment boards against similar products that contain only new parts (OEM-Original Equipment Manufacturers).

Parameters such as material costs, consumption, time, emissions, will be very important for the final assessment of the implementation of such alternative.

The project will also focus on the creation of specialised disassembly centres at the recycling companies, leading to a new business opportunity for the recycling market as well as new employment opportunities, and therefore to the introduction of “valuable waste” in the market again.

The development of a reused component database to support the recycling centres in the evaluation of electric and electronic products, in terms of eco-efficiency and reuse capability will be carried out in the project. This tool will allow the SMEs to access all the information related to standards, legislation, guidelines for compliance, waste management alternatives and to compare the products in terms of ElectroValue particularly focused on eco-efficiency, life time and reliability level. Waste management and costs associated to each alternative, including a friendly user based photolibrary to compare standard and reused EEE boards based the level of quality required, will be approached.

ACTIVITIES:

- Life Cycle Analysis

- Waste management and EE components reuse assessment /Reliability issues

- Disassembly techniques, procedures & training

- Management tool

- Dissemination activities

- Disassembly Pilot Centre

PROJECT DURATION:

The Project will start in January 2009 and will be finished in December 2011.

PARTNERS:

- ISQ – Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade

- C3P – Centro Para Prevenção da Poluição

- INTERECYCLING – Sociedade de Reciclagem S.A.

- EMPLACE – Produção Electrónica S.A.

- ANIMEE - Associação Portuguesa das Empresas do Sector Eléctrico e Electrónico

- APEMETA – Associação Portuguesa de Empresas de Tecnologias Ambientais