Chapter 26
Recyclability of Tungsten, Tantalum
and Neodymium from Smartphones
Nils F. Nissen, Julia Reinhold, Karsten Schischke, and Klaus-Dieter-Lang
Abstract Despite increasing pressure to reduce the consumption of critical
resources, a number of highly relevant elements are still not being recycled from
electronics, or only in the few applications, where they are used in bigger units.
In high volume products and particular mobile products such as smartphones the
content of these materials is low per unit, but still a large quantity when multiplied
with millions of units shipped per year. The sustainably SMART projects explores
the option to separate components containing tantalum, neodymium and tungsten
from disassembled smartphones as these metals are lost in conventional electronics
waste recycling processes. In this paper the target components are tantalum capacitors, loudspeakers, and vibration motors. Example quantities per device are explored
and mirrored against current and potential recycling processes.
Keywords Recyclability · Critical raw materials · Recycling of mobile devices
26.1 Introduction
The conventional waste electrical and electronics recycling processes do not recover
the conflict minerals tungsten (W) and tantalum (Ta) or the rare earth element
Neodymium (Nd). Some smelters buy whole units, batteries potentially being
removed beforehand, without rewarding a prior separation of individual subassemblies and even advising preprocessing companies preferably not to shred
units for data destruction. The reason is the potential loss of precious metals when
certain material fractions or sub-assemblies are separated, either following shredding
(Chancerel et al. 2009) or manually, and shredding potentially leads to losses through
dust emissions. Under these conditions the processes of copper and precious metal
N. F. Nissen (B) · J. Reinhold · K. Schischke · Klaus-Dieter-Lang
Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, Berlin, Germany
e-mail: nils.nissen@izm.fraunhofer.de
Klaus-Dieter-Lang
Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
Y. Kishita et al. (eds.), EcoDesign and Sustainability I, Sustainable Production, Life Cycle
Engineering and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6779-7_26
365
Recyclability of Tungsten, Tantalum
and Neodymium from Smartphones
Nils F. Nissen, Julia Reinhold, Karsten Schischke, and Klaus-Dieter-Lang
Abstract Despite increasing pressure to reduce the consumption of critical
resources, a number of highly relevant elements are still not being recycled from
electronics, or only in the few applications, where they are used in bigger units.
In high volume products and particular mobile products such as smartphones the
content of these materials is low per unit, but still a large quantity when multiplied
with millions of units shipped per year. The sustainably SMART projects explores
the option to separate components containing tantalum, neodymium and tungsten
from disassembled smartphones as these metals are lost in conventional electronics
waste recycling processes. In this paper the target components are tantalum capacitors, loudspeakers, and vibration motors. Example quantities per device are explored
and mirrored against current and potential recycling processes.
Keywords Recyclability · Critical raw materials · Recycling of mobile devices
26.1 Introduction
The conventional waste electrical and electronics recycling processes do not recover
the conflict minerals tungsten (W) and tantalum (Ta) or the rare earth element
Neodymium (Nd). Some smelters buy whole units, batteries potentially being
removed beforehand, without rewarding a prior separation of individual subassemblies and even advising preprocessing companies preferably not to shred
units for data destruction. The reason is the potential loss of precious metals when
certain material fractions or sub-assemblies are separated, either following shredding
(Chancerel et al. 2009) or manually, and shredding potentially leads to losses through
dust emissions. Under these conditions the processes of copper and precious metal
N. F. Nissen (B) · J. Reinhold · K. Schischke · Klaus-Dieter-Lang
Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, Berlin, Germany
e-mail: nils.nissen@izm.fraunhofer.de
Klaus-Dieter-Lang
Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
Y. Kishita et al. (eds.), EcoDesign and Sustainability I, Sustainable Production, Life Cycle
Engineering and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6779-7_26
365