In recent years

scientists have become increasingly concerned in recycling electronic trash

particularly waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs). Previous research has indicated that the presence of Cu impacts the pyrolysis of WPCBs. However

there may be errors in the experimental results

as printed circuit boards (PCBs) with copper and those without copper are produced differently. For this experiment

we blended copper powder with PCB nonmetallic resin powder in various ratios to create the samples. The apparent kinetics and pyrolysis properties of four resin powders with varying copper concentrations were compared using nonisothermal thermogravimetric analysis (TG) and thermal pyrolysis-gas chromatography mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS). From the perspective of kinetics

the apparent activation energy of the resin powder in the pyrolysis reaction shows a rise (0.1＜α＜0.2)-stable (0.2＜α＜0.4)-accelerated increase (0.4＜α＜0.8)- decrease (0.8＜α＜0.9) process. After adding copper powder

the apparent activation energy changes more obviously when (0.2＜α＜0.4). In the early stage of the pyrolysis reaction (0.1＜α＜0.6)

the apparent activation energy is reduced

but when α = 0.8

it is much higher than that of the resin sample without copper. Additionally

it is discovered using thermogravimetric analysis and Py-GC/MS that copper shortens the temperature range of the primary pyrolysis reaction and prevents the creation of compounds containing bromine. This inhibition will raise the temperature at which compounds containing bromine first form

and it will keep rising as the copper level rises. The majority of the circuit board molecules have lower bond energies when copper is present

according to calculations performed using the Gaussian09 software

which promotes the pyrolysis reaction.