ABSTRACT
The recycling of Waste Printed Circuit Boards (WPCBs) constituent materials has been of increasing relevance, especially when associated to the also increasing volume of WPCBs, caused by factors such as the technological advancement and the reduction of estimated useful life of products. The WPCBs recycling plants use physical processing operations such as dismantling, crushing, sieving, magnetic, gravity and density separation for the recovery of metals. The main objective of this work was the evaluation of the efficiency of the copper enrichment of fractions obtained in the physical recycling process of WPCBs. According to the results obtained in the present study, it is indicated the use of the process of physical separation in fractions with particle size +1 mm, aiming at the enrichment of metallic fractions, especially the nonmagnetic fraction, once the concentrate NM + 1 mm fraction, presented a concentration of 78% of copper in its composition.
