1 Research Center of Resource Recycling Science and Engineering, Shanghai Polytechnic University, Shanghai 201209, People's Republic of China.
2 Shanghai Collaborative Innovation Centre for WEEE Recycling, Shanghai 201209, People's Republic of China.
Waste Manag Res. 2018 Sep;36(9):849-856. doi: 10.1177/0734242X18785727. Epub 2018 Jul 17.
Cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs), with mercury as their essential component, were widely used as backlight in liquid crystal display (LCD) appliances before 2008. Since 2008, the mercury-free light emitting diode started to be used as a substitute for CCFLs and the replacement finished in about 2014. Nowadays, CCFLs are obsolete products from the viewpoint of manufacture but they are important as waste. In recent years, large amounts of CCFLs are flowing to waste phase for treatment and this has become a major issue in most countries. To better understand and control the risk of CCFLs, the stock of mercury in CCFLs, its flow to waste phase and mercury emission with the life cycle of CCFLs in mainland China were estimated in this study. Results showed that there was 15.2 tons of mercury stocked in CCFLs in main LCD appliances (i.e., LCD televisions, LCD monitors, and laptop monitors) from 2003-2015. CCFLs and mercury started to flow to waste phase around the year 2007 and will likely peak in 2018 with an annual flow of 324.8 million units and 1.5 tons respectively, then will likely decline dramatically till 2030. Dismantling and production were the two main life stages of CCFLs with mercury vapor release, during which approximately 2.1 tons and 1.2 tons of mercury were released to the atmosphere respectively. The research also indicates that mercury recycling in specialized facilities was another life stage with high mercury emission risk in which the processes of shredding, separation, and residue disposal are inevitably accompanied by mercury release.
冷阴极荧光灯（CCFL）以汞为主要成分，在 2008 年之前被广泛用作液晶显示器（LCD）的背光源。自 2008 年以来，无汞发光二极管开始取代 CCFL，大约在 2014 年完成了替代。如今，从制造的角度来看，CCFL 已经是过时的产品，但作为废物它们很重要。近年来，大量的 CCFL 流向废物处理阶段，这在大多数国家已成为一个主要问题。为了更好地了解和控制 CCFL 的风险，本研究估计了中国大陆 CCFL 中的汞存量、流向废物阶段以及 CCFL 生命周期中的汞排放。结果表明，2003 年至 2015 年，中国大陆主要的液晶设备（即液晶电视、液晶显示器和笔记本电脑显示器）中的 CCFL 中储存了 15.2 吨汞。CCFL 和汞大约从 2007 年开始流向废物阶段，到 2018 年可能达到峰值，每年有 3.248 亿个和 1.5 吨分别流入废物阶段，然后可能会大幅下降到 2030 年。拆解和生产是 CCFL 有汞蒸气释放的两个主要生命周期阶段，在此期间，大约有 2.1 吨和 1.2 吨汞分别释放到大气中。研究还表明，在专门的设施中进行汞回收也是一个生命周期阶段，具有很高的汞排放风险，在这个阶段，粉碎、分离和残渣处理等过程不可避免地伴随着汞的释放。
