Thermogravimetric Analysis and Kinetic Study of Waste Printed Circuit Board in Various Atmospheres
TG analysis was used to investigate the thermal decomposition of waste printed circuit board (WPCBs) under pyrolysis (in N2), gasification (in CO2) and combustion (in Air) conditions. The experiments were performed at different heating rates (10, 20 and 30 K/min) up to 1233 K. Kissinger method was applied to obtain the kinetic parameters from the experimental data. The results show that the heating rate affects the TG and DTG curves due to the heat transfer limitation. The DTG curve of pyrolysis has only a single peak while that of both gasification and combustion process has two peaks. The activation energy of the first gasification stage is near to that of the pyrolysis process, while the activation energy of the first combustion stage is lower than that of pyrolysis or gasification process. And the activation energy for the second stage of gasification and combustion is much higher than that of the first stage.