Olympus’ Damien Blondel recently presented at the International WEEE and Battery Recycling Virtual Conference, an event that brings together industry professionals from across the world to discuss trends, insights, and best practices in the electronics and battery recycling industry.
Damien reviewed why portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) is a powerful technique to get on-site, fast, and easy chemical composition of a wide range of materials in electronics and battery recycling. If you missed the presentation or want a recap, this post will share highlights and lessons from the talk.
Portable XRF is a versatile tool for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and battery recycling, including:
Let’s explore each XRF application for battery metals recycling.
pXRF analyzers provide key battery commodity concentrations for these elements:
pXRF instruments such as our Vanta™ handheld XRF analyzers can help optimize the extraction, smelting, and refining processes, as well as reduce the number of lab tests. While pXRF analyzers can’t quantify lithium (Li), portable X-ray diffraction (pXRD) tools such as our BTX™ III or TERRA™ II instruments can complement pXRF and analyze lithium and other key materials in battery metals recycling or battery metal exploration.
pXRF analyzers can also screen for toxic metals in many consumer products, including electronics, enabling RoHS compliance.
Screening for toxic metals with the Vanta handheld XRF analyzer
For instance, the Vanta analyzer can screen for:
Portable XRF analyzers are ideal tools for conducting a reasonable testing program (RTP)—a formal testing plan that you develop and follow to comply with regulations that apply to your product. An RTP can help you fulfill requirements for:
Vanta analyzers can be configured to provide RoHS pass/fail results
In addition, pXRF analyzers can quantify precious and valuable metals from materials in circuit boards, connectors, and cables. These metals include:
Precious metals testing using a Vanta analyzer
Vanta analyzers give you fast results to help you optimize your precious metals refining process and reduce the number of lab tests. For instance, you can quickly get gold analysis results directly on the analyzer, as shown in the images below.
Vanta analyzers alert you if gold plating is possible
Vanta handheld XRF analyzers identify 14 karat gold quickly and effectively
Overall, Vanta handheld XRF serves a wide range of applications for electronics and battery recycling, including RoHS and regulatory applications, precious metals testing, and battery mineral testing.
Along with its rapid chemical composition results, the Vanta analyzer’s design makes it an ideal tool for battery metals recycling:
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