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Life cycle assessment of a printed circuit board manufacturing plant in Turkey

  • Protection and Restoration of the Environment
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Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the environmental impacts of a printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing plant through streamlined life cycle assessment approach. As a result, the most effective recommendations on minimizing the environmental impacts for the mentioned sector are revealed and first steps towards establishing a country specific database are taken. The whole PCB production consists of two consecutive stages: namely board fabrication followed by the manufacturing of PCB. Manufacturing of PCB contributes the highest shares to freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity potential (FAETP) and ozone layer depletion potential (ODP). Eighty-nine percent of FAETP is found to be generated from the manufacturing of PCB. Almost all of this contribution can be attributed to the disposal of copper containing wastewater treatment sludge from etching operations to incineration. On the other hand, PCB manufacturing has 73% share in total ODP. Within the manufacturing of PCB, as etching operations are found to be of importance for all the impact categories except eutrophication potential (EP), it is recommended to focus further studies on in-plant control of etching.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Sebnem Tantan Akbas, Sevgican Koc, and Kemal Karakaya for sharing their valuable knowledge on PCB production. This study was supported by The Research and Development Fund of Istanbul Technical University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, 34469, Istanbul, Turkey

    Elif Ozkan & Fatos Germirli Babuna

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, 34469, Istanbul, Turkey

    Nilay Elginoz

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  1. Elif Ozkan
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  2. Nilay Elginoz
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  3. Fatos Germirli Babuna
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Correspondence to Fatos Germirli Babuna.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Ozkan, E., Elginoz, N. & Germirli Babuna, F. Life cycle assessment of a printed circuit board manufacturing plant in Turkey. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25, 26801–26808 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-0280-z

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