To enhance wealth and asset recovery from printed circuit boards, NorthEast Surplus & Materials, LLC (NESM) introduced a printed wiring board depopulator. It is a machine with a conveyor system that removes the valuable components on a printed circuit board, which include chips, connectors and other components containing precious metals.

Presently, most companies that remove and refurbish chips do their work by hand. The DePop is an efficient process of depopulating a printed wire board for chip removal and precious metal recovery.

Boards are removed by hand from the system it resides. All cables and sockets are removed. The conveyor is designed to allow the operator to move the board to fit flat on the conveyor system prior to introduction to the machine. Boards emerge from the other end of the machine after having the valuable components drop off through the process and are sorted into a bin or conveyed to the grinding and pulverization venue. The depopulator moves 96% of parts that are on circuit boards except those parts that are inserted and then physically crimped to hold them in place. Most of these parts that have no value are sent to the pulverizer for metal recovery with no environmental harm. Another benefit of the depopulation system is precious metal recovery. NESM expends minimal energy, time and money and is able to produce 125 pounds of pure copper from one ton of computer circuit boards in one day, in an environmentally sound and safe manner. The development of this technology has positive economical, environmental and social aspects.

This automated, non-labor intensive process meets the following criteria:

• Removes surface mounted and through-the-hole parts, either side

• Cost effective recovery of reusable and legacy parts from printed circuits

• Minimal physical or thermal shock with little or no cosmetic damage

• Low labor and energy requirements – a computer mother board every 20 seconds

• Meets requirements for refurbishing houses as to leads and re-solder ability

• Recovery of useful components – 96% of all parts

• Nominal annual maintenance with a projected useful life of 10 years

Each piece of in-bound equipment is sent to pre-check for inspection and evaluation of any hazardous materials. Batteries or oil filled capacitors may contain PCBs, or mercury containing components such as florescent lamps. Following inspection and the hazardous material removal process, equipment is sent through a shredder. The shredder reduces the product down to small pieces then sent by conveyor to a granulator and then to the pulverizer. The resultant powdered material is introduced into our patent pending hydro-separator where the metals and non-metals are separated for further processing. Magnetic separation further separates the lower value ferrous metals form the higher value non-ferrous metals. Further refinement of the resultant metals removes the class II metals, aluminum, zinc, magnesium and manganese.

NESM’s innovative process of legacy chip and precious metals recovery is a culmination of seven years of engineering, research and development. The patent pending process heats the solder and not the components, re-captures them, and then sends the parts to a conveyor system for sorting and recovery.

Patent is pending.