The Added Value of Copper and Silver Metal from Printed Circuit Boards Waste Using Davis Tube with Variations of Size and Magnetic Intensity

The widespread use of electronic devices has led to a significant increase in electronic waste, including PCB (printed circuit board) waste. PCBs contain valuable metals like copper and silver, which can be reclaimed and reused. Recently, there has been a growing demand for urban mining processes to extract electronic waste PCB Flame Retardant-2 (FR-2) from laptops and computers. During the urban mining process, PCB FR-2 waste undergoes various physical treatments such as dismantling, crushing, and concentration processes. One of the concentration processes involves magnetic separation using a Davis tube. This study aims to investigate the effects of size and magnetic intensity variations on the recovery of copper and silver levels in FR-2 PCB waste. The magnetic concentration process was carried out using different size ranges (-63+100#, -100+150#, -150#) and magnetic intensities (1000 G, 2000 G, 3000 G). The results indicated that the most effective size for separating copper and silver is -63+100# and the optimal magnetic intensity is 1000 G. This resulted in copper and silver content of 45.66% and 0.162%, with recoveries of 80.135% and 62.505% respectively.