Case study of a printed-wire-board concerning (re)design for environment

Following the short innovation cycles in electronic appliances it becomes more and more important to prevent this equipment or parts of it to change into waste and final disposal. The goal is to extend the life time of electronic products in order to decrease the environmental impact. This case study focused therefore on designing PWBs (printed wire boards) for maximum reusability of the components as well as aspects for a better separation of hazardous components on a PWB. The project became possible by building a flexible semi-automatic disassembling cell "Σ! 1592-Disassembly Factory" within the Strategic CAPE initiative for extracting valuable components from printed wire-boards (PWB).