Environmental Pollution PCB manufacturing
For example, let us consider the epoxy board, made from glass fibers or plastic sheets merged with industrial-grade epoxy adhesives.
To the merger, each sheet is treated using various concentrated chemicals to get rid of the residues. The excess solution is cleansed with another chemical solution to make it PCB-friendly. This entire process releases a chemical that is toxic to the environment.
Even the raw material used in making the epoxy boards under chemical process is a chain of toxic chemical processes from earthed minerals to functional PCB. The flux used to bond the solder paste usually contains 30+ chemical and petroleum products that emit toxic gases and oily residues when heated. Filtration and containment techniques are used to arrest these effects, but they are not perfect such that a significant quantity is released anyways.
How to avoid or reduce it?
IPC standards enlist the allowable amount of chemicals to be discarded into the environment. A quality board must have almost no post-manufacturing emissions and residues that may harm the user. Due to pollution, heavy metals like lead are prohibited from using almost every electronic product to minimize their toxic effects.
New and improved methods that can ease the manufacturing process and cause less pollution to the environment are continuously evolving every day.
Recycling can also reduce pollution.
