A seminar on

GREEN ELECTRONICS

Vignans Engineering college, Vadlamudi

by

B.GAYATRI SUSMITHA (08391A0470) IV/IV ECE

Signature of the Guide:

(Mr.B.Seetha Ramanjaneyulu)

Electronics has made life easier for us. But the omnipresence of electronics in modern life has a seamy underside. Certain materials used in electronic products are toxic and pose a threat to the environment. The situation is becoming serious with the increasing use of electronics. Alarm bells have started ringing. And to tackle the situation, the industry is resorting to green electronics. Green electronics focuses on elimination of harmful elements and components, and recycling of electronic products at the end of life. Among the harmful elements are lead, cadmium, mercury and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE). WHAT IS GREEN ELECTRONICS? Green electronics refers to recycle or reuse their electronics products once they have reached end-of-life. It was designed by The Consumer Electronics Association to empower consumers to make what some people consider "responsible choices" throughout their products life cycle (purchasing, use, reuse, and recycling), but does not specifically endorse any one company or business practice, and is meant to be an objective resource. There is a growing desire by governmental and private institutional purchasers to reduce the environmental impact of the electronic products they buy. To date, however, institutional purchasers have not been able to easily distinguish environmentally preferable products among all those in the marketplace. There was no consensus on what environmental aspects of a product should be evaluated, how they should be weighted, and how those aspects could be incorporated into the purchasing process. Current ecolabels are either not well known, or the range of certified products is too limited for large purchasers. Governmental purchasers also lack the expertise to evaluate complex environmental issues. DISPOSAL OF E-WASTE : e-waste can be disposed in three ways:

Incineration Landfilling Recycling.

INCINERATION: Incineration entails destroying the e-waste including computers and other electronic devices and components by burning. But this waste contributes significantly to heavy metals and halogen Ted substances. Because of the variety of different substances found together in electro scrap, incineration is particularly dangerous. The introduction of waste from electrical and electronic equipment into incinerators results in high concentrations of metals, including heavy metals, in the slag, fly ash, flue gas and filter cake. More than 90 per cent of cadmium and lead put to an incinerator is found in the fly ash and more than 70 per cent of the mercury in the filter cake. Some producers send their electro scrap to cement kilns for use as an alternative to fuel. Smelting can present dangers similar to incineration. LANDFILLING: Landfilling involves disposing the e-waste by burying it, especially as a method of filling in and reclaiming excavated pits. But it has become common knowledge that all landfills leak. Even the best state-of- the- art landfills dont remain completely tight throughout their lifetimes and a certain amount of chemical and metal leaching will occur. The situation is worse for older or uncontrolled dump sites.

Mercury leaches when certain electronic devices, such as circuit breakers, are destroyed. The same is true for PCBs from condensers. When brominates flame-retarded plastic or cadmium-containing plastics are landfilled, both PBDE and cadmium may leach into the soil and ground water. It has been found that significant amounts of lead ions are dissolved from broken lead containing glass, such as the cone glass of cathode ray tubes, when mixed with acid waters.

RECYCLING: Recycling of hazardous products has little environmental benefit -it simply moves the hazards into secondary products that eventually have to be disposed of. Unless the goal is to redesign the product to use non- hazardous materials, such recycling is a false solution. The e-toxic components in computers include: 1. Computer circuit boards containing heavy metals like lead and cadmium 2. Computer batteries containing cadmium 3. Cathode ray tubes with lead oxide and barium 4. Brominated flame-retardants used on PCBs, cables and plastic casing 5. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) coated copper cables and plastic computer casings that release highly toxic dioxins and furans when burnt to recover valuable metals 6. Mercury switches 7. Mercury in flat screens 8. Polychlorinated biphenyls present in older capacitors and transformers

Environmental problems during recycling are not linked to halogenated substances only. Hazardous emissions to the air also result from the recycling of e-waste containing heavy metals, such as lead and cadmium. These emissions could be significantly reduced by pretreatment operations. Another problem with heavy metals and halogenated substances in untreated waste occurs during the shredding process. Since most waste is shredded without proper disassembly, hazardous substances, such as PCBs contained in capacitors, may be dispersed into the recovered metals and the shredder waste.

CONSEQUENCES OF USING LEAD-FREE SOLDERS : Lead is very toxic to humans and can, among other things, cause serious chronic damage. Other metals such as silver (Ag), tin (Sn) and copper (Cu) have significantly lower toxic effects on the human body. From a health perspective, it therefore seems sound to avoid lead in tin solders if there is a risk of human exposure. Use of modern production equipment, in which the soldering process takes place in closed systems, reduces or eliminates the risk of human exposure in work-related situations. However, there would always be a risk of exposure in maintenance and repair of production equipment. In relation to the working environment alone, it is therefore relevant to a certain extent to phase out alloys containing lead. In the long term, humans are primarily exposed to lead via the environment. When soldered products are disposed of, a greater or smaller share of the material will end up in the waste system. When incinerated, lead contents become easily soluble, leading to increased leaching from the landfills where residues from waste incineration end up.