Achilias Dimitris S, Charitopoulou Maria-Anna, Ciprioti Stefano Vecchio
Laboratory of Polymer and Colours Chemistry and Technology, Department of Chemistry, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece.
Department of Basic and Applied Sciences for Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, 00161 Rome, Italy.
Polymers (Basel). 2024 Sep 7;16(17):2538. doi: 10.3390/polym16172538.
The amount of end-of-life electrical and electronic devices has been widely increased, globally. This emphasizes how recycling waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) is essential in order to reduce the amount of WEEE that is disposed of directly in the environment. Plastics account for a big percentage in WEEE, almost 20%. As a result, the application of recycling methods on plastics gathered from WEEE is of great importance since, in this way, landfill disposal can be reduced. Nevertheless, despite the advantages, there are a lot of difficulties, such as the variety of different plastics present in the plastic mix and the existence of various additives in the plastic parts, for instance, brominated flame retardants that need special attention during their treatments, which restricts their wide application. Considering all these, this review aims to provide readers with all the current techniques and perspectives that are available for both the thermal and the catalytic recycling of plastics retrieved from WEEE. Apart from the up-to-date information on the recycling methods, in this review, emphasis is also given on the advantages each method offers and also on the difficulties and the limitations that may prevent them from being applied on a large scale. Current challenges are critically examined, including the use of mechanical or thermo-chemical recycling, the treatment of individual polymers or polymer blends and the separation of harmful additives before recycling or not. Finally, emerging technologies are briefly discussed.
全球范围内，报废电子电气设备的数量大幅增加。这凸显了回收废弃电子电气设备（WEEE）对于减少直接丢弃到环境中的WEEE数量至关重要。塑料在WEEE中占比很大，近20%。因此，对从WEEE收集的塑料应用回收方法非常重要，因为这样可以减少填埋处理。然而，尽管有这些优点，但仍存在许多困难，例如塑料混合物中存在多种不同的塑料，以及塑料部件中存在各种添加剂，例如溴化阻燃剂，在处理过程中需要特别关注，这限制了它们的广泛应用。考虑到所有这些因素，本综述旨在为读者提供从WEEE中回收的塑料进行热回收和催化回收的所有现有技术和观点。除了关于回收方法的最新信息外，本综述还强调了每种方法的优点以及可能阻止它们大规模应用的困难和局限性。对当前的挑战进行了严格审查，包括机械或热化学回收的使用、单个聚合物或聚合物共混物的处理以及回收前有害添加剂的分离与否。最后，简要讨论了新兴技术。
