Challenge Printed Circuit Board: Analytics, Assessment and Improvements

Over the last years the amount of products containing electronic devices has strongly increased. Due to the product variety and shorter innovation cycles this figure is expected to go up even further. The production as well as the disposal of these products causes considerable environmental problems. Particularly the recycling of the electronic components in these products is very difficult because of the narrow penetration of the different materials, the large variety of the applied materials and the use of harmful or non-recyclable substances. Therefore the electronic devices with the printed circuit boards are an important starting point for the ecological optimisation of electronic products. The substrate materials as well as the components and the soldering materials for the interconnections can be improved from an ecological point of view. In the following text several examples will be shown