Indium Recovery and Recycling from an LCD Panel

Abstract

Environmental problem turns one of the most important issue in the world. Recently, more and more people concerned about environment and their health. Especially, waste management and resources recycling issues are important problems equal to global warming, disruption of ecosystem and other problems. The markets of electric appliances and electronics devices are highly developing, therefore wastes from those items are supposed to be rapidly increasing. Rapid rise of industrial production leads to growing demand of resources, so securing of resources is very important for manufacturer in the future. So there are strong needs to recover and recycling of resources from used products and waste from materials. Thanks for its advantages such as ``flat screen'', ``lightweight'', and ``low power consumption'', LCD panels are utilized in many final products such as LCD TV, mobile phone etc. And the production of final products with LCD are growing rapidly, too. Therefore, in the recycling technology of LCD panels, we should focus on how we collect the materials from LCD panel effectively. Especially, indium is very important. Because indium is a one of rare metal, and essential materials for transparent electrode of LCD panel. To avoid the shortages of indium for LCD production in near future, securing indium resources is important for LCD panel manufacturers. We are developing technologies that work to recover indium resources from LCD panels.