Liberation Decides What You Recover
ERS delivers turnkey PCB recycling systems engineered for high-efficiency metal recovery and sustainable e-waste processing. Our solutions handle a wide range of circuit boards — including green board recycling — with precision, consistency and scalability. These systems support processors who need reliable performance, clean sorting and stable throughput across diverse PCB material streams.
What Is Actually in a Board
ERS systems extract maximum value from printed circuit boards by recovering copper, gold, silver and other valuable metals while minimizing waste and environmental impact. Whether the feed is mixed PCBs, depopulated boards or specialized electronic components, the technology delivers high-purity separation and dependable output quality.
The economics are unusual for a scrap stream. A board is mostly fiberglass and resin by weight, but the value sits in a few percent of metal spread thinly through it. That makes liberation the whole job — metal left bound into the substrate is metal that leaves with the waste fraction, and nobody weighs what they never recovered.
Shredding and Liberation
Boards are reduced in controlled stages rather than in one pass. Pre-shredding opens whole boards and populated assemblies, then shredders and mills bring the material down to a size where copper, solder and precious metal carriers separate from the fiberglass. Hammer mills handle the harder end where a granulator will not.
Particle size is the control that decides everything downstream. Too coarse and metal stays locked in the substrate; too fine and fine copper and gold leave in the dust. The right size is set by the board mix, not by a standard setting.
Sorting the Fractions
Magnetic separation takes the ferrous. Eddy current and density separation tables sort the non-ferrous fractions by density, which is what pulls the metal concentrate away from the resin and glass. Advanced material separation handles the middlings where a simple density split will not do it.
Conveying and pneumatic transport move material between stages, and dust collection is part of the design rather than an accessory — board dust is fine, abrasive and carries the precious metal you are trying to keep.
Engineered to the Operation
Each system is designed to the specific needs of the operation: the correct shredding stages, the sorting modules and the material handling paths required to reach the recovery targets. Compact and modular configurations mean a system fits a small recycling operation or a large industrial plant without being a different product.
That matters because board streams change. A processor taking depopulated boards today may be taking whole assemblies next year, and a line built only for one of those has to be rebuilt rather than extended.
Where PCB Sits in the Range
PCB recycling is one part of a wider electronics capability. The full range sits under electronics and e-waste recycling systems, retail returns and liquidation volume under retail e-waste and e-scrap, and cable and harness material under copper wire and cable recycling. Motor, alternator and starter scrap routes to meatball and armature processing, and everything sits under metals processing and scrap metal recycling systems.
Prove It On Your Own Material First
Recovery figures on paper are a starting point, not an answer. The ERS Test Facility in Atlanta exists so you never have to take one on trust. Send a sample of your actual boards and we will run them through an ERS process flow, then show you the recovery, the purity and the throughput, with the output fractions in front of you rather than a number in a brochure.
On a stream where the value sits in a few percent of the weight, that test is usually what decides the flowsheet.
Support After Commissioning
A board line is worth what it does in year five. ERS keeps a stocked warehouse and supports every installation it builds, through to spare parts and service — hammers, screens and separation components without a lead time measured in months. Installed systems are written up under project news and system updates.
Next Steps for Your PCB Recycling Project
If you are specifying PCB recycling systems, send your board mix, your volume and your recovery targets through the contact form. Better still, send a sample and we will run it.