3
air) resulting from lead leaching. The detrimental environmental impact is the driving force to look for alternative technology and develop solutions for recycling
cathode-ray tube glass.
Cathode-ray tubes are difficult to recycle because of the leaded glass they contain, and cathode-ray tube glass has essentially no commodity value. A typical
cathode- ray tube has between 1.5 and 2 kg of lead (24.17 in percentage weight of
total chemical components) among many other oxides as shown in Fig. 1.2. All of
the lead is stored in the funnel component of the cathode-ray tube. The leaded glass
needs to be processed, stored, and transported without causing environmental contamination. Recyclers typically must pay a consumer to take the panel and funnel
glass. At the same time, the value of the remaining commodities, such as copper
wiring, plastic, and other metals, has gone down in the past few years. That makes
it much harder for recyclers to absorb the costs associated with cathode-ray tube
recycling. Though there are other markets for the material, such as lead smelters,
Funnel Glass
(Contains lead with
conductive coating)
Neck Glass
(Contains lead)
Frit
(Almost 85% lead)
Panel Glass
(Small lead with Phosphor coating)
Fig. 1.1 Various components of cathode-ray tube. (Source: Author)
Fig. 1.2 Chemical
component in cathode-ray
tube glass structures in
percentage weight.
(Source: Adapted from
Andreola et al. 2005; Chen
et al. 2009; Shi et al. 2011;
Singh et al. 2016a, b)
1 Solution and Challenges in Recycling Waste Cathode-Ray Tube