Brominated flame retardants in wastes : aspects related to treatment and recycling

Abstract

Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are chemical compounds that are added to various products to increase flame resistance as a safety measure. These compounds are generally toxic and known as persistent organic pollutants. To this day, there are many articles, studies and researchers dedicated towards study of brominated flame retardants, however they generally lack circular economy aspect of their lifecycle. This work aims to gather literature about BFRs behavior, presence, legislation and treatment options and then analyze them altogether. In result, several study cases indicate not only presence of BFRs in waste streams, specifically electronic waste (e-waste) streams, but also evidence of the leakage of BFR compounds into the recycled products. Several treatment methods were described, such as pyrolysis, thermal degradation. Overall, with proper monitoring and treatment, BFRs have potential to be re-moved from the recycled products and isolated from the e-waste streams as well. Legislation aspect of the brominated flame retardants is handled well in European Union by United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP), RoHS directive and REACH regulation. Asian-Pacific countries also partly follow regulations made by UNEP. When it comes to USA, regulations are handled state by state, which could be improved by applying federal regulations