Curing behavior of the plate produced by nonmetallic materials recycled from waste printed circuit boards

Abstract

Abstract A plate was produced by nonmetallic materials (NMs) from waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) as reinforcing filler. In the whole preparation process of the plate, molding is most important because during molding, the bonding agent would cure with the crosslinking agent in the presence of initiator and the properties of the plate is significantly dependent on the extent of cure. This article used differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to study the curing behavior of the plate. The results showed that filling NMs lowered down the reaction rate and reduced the activation energy E a to 87.58 kJ/mol. Optimum curing temperature ranges were determined based on DSC data and two types of plates were made under this temperature range. The mechanical properties of the plates were tested and the results showed that the plate of NMs was of moderate quality, which verified the feasibility of reusing NMs to substitute for the conventional fillers such as glass fiber, calcium carbonate, etc. This paper offers theoretical basis for producing good quality plate by NMs from WPCBs and resolving the environmental pollution caused by NMs. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011