This week, my old high school generously donated ten chromebooks for our group to use in our experiment, securing the material needed for our future research. Due to their dangerous nature, the group removed each battery pack and put them in a secure location so as to avoid any unwanted situations. As we will […]
Jacob Nyholm Mountaintop Experience 2023 Week 5: Chromebooks and Experiments Read More »
This week I looked into methods that occur in the disassembly process. I studied subcritical water debromination, and debromination efficiency on PCBs with various additives to a ball mill. On the side, I did some research on the ball mill itself and the balls that you use for the machine. PCBs contain BFRs
Gaby Ramirez Mountaintop Experience 2023 Week 4: Expanding into Disassembly Read More »
Last week’s research into using subcritical water in the debromination process in separating the metals of printed circuit boards from the plastics. While this did mean that the same process that uses supercritical water could be done with less energy to maintain the pressure needed for a supercritical state, massive amounts of energy would
Jacob Nyholm Mountaintop Experience 2023 Week 4: A Possibility Read More »
This week I continued my research by looking at electrodeposition in ionic liquids, as well as different grinding processes for PCBs. I was also able to search for more companies, authors, and researchers to contact in order to learn more about specific processes. My research with ionic liquids continued from last week, with
Gaby Ramirez Mountaintop Experience Week 3: Continuing Pursuit Read More »
Throughout the past week, I have been building on the research that I did last week on the disassembly step for waste printed circuit board (WPCB) recycling while expanding into the recovery step of recycling. While the usage of supercritical water for the degradation of organic materials in WPCBs was promising, the energy required
Jacob Nyholm Mountaintop Experience 2023 Week 3: The Process Continues Read More »
This week we examined different practices throughout our research dealing with the disassembly and separation process for PCBs. Together we were able to lay more foundation for the general knowledge of E-waste recycling. From this research, we were able to identify limitations in possible experimental methods in order for easier design of experiments in
Lehigh Loewy Institute Mountaintop Experience Week 2: Research and Outreach Read More »
This week I focused mainly on some specific extraction methods for PCBs. The methods I looked at were in an attempt to learn more about processes that can offer recovery of metals at a cheaper rate or in a more environmentally friendly manner. To start, I looked at electro-conductivity technology. This technique focuses
Gaby Ramirez Mountaintop Experience 2023 Week 2: Research Continued Read More »
With initial research done in metals recycling, the group was able to move onto more specific research, looking into subjects that appear promising to the end goal of identifying methods of improvement for the current recycling process. After reviewing different reports on the main points that either have a large amount of emissions or
Jacob Nyholm Mountaintop Experience 2023 Week 2: Building on the Foundation Read More »
Throughout the whole first week we’ve already started to get some general information and ideas about metal recycling and sustainability. Our primary focus is on E-waste recycling like PCB, battery and wires. At the beginning of this week, we are still not sure what our specific goals are about our whole project, what is
Richard Liu Mountaintop Experience 2023 Week 1: A First Week’s Look at Metal Recycling Read More »
Words by Gaby Ramirez, Jacob Nyholm, and Richard (Zhizhen) Liu Throughout the week, our team was able to accomplish many remarkable things. We attended several meetings with the Loewy Institute where we were able to establish our working spaces and equipment we needed, as well as discussed various companies to contact and possible conferences
