• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.120-128
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• 2022

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are a basic component in the electronics industry and are widely used in nearly all electronic products, such as mobile phones, tablet computers, and digital cameras, as well as in electric equipment. PCB manufacturing involves the use of many chemicals and chemical processes and therefore has more risks than other manufacturing sectors. This study aims to identify the causes of possible accidents during PCB manufacturing through risk assessment, develop and implement safety measures, and evaluate the effectiveness of these measures. Note that the safety measures developed to mitigate the risks of a certain process were also implemented for other similar processes. The risk assessments conducted over seven years, from 2015 to 2021, at a PCB manufacturing company identified 361 hazardous processes. Between 2016 and 2019, 41-56 hazardous processes were identified per year; such processes decreased to fewer than 20 per year after 2020. Application of the risk assessment results to the improvement of the hazardous processes with the similar characteristics seems to be effective in decreasing the risks. Equipment-related factors such as lack of appropriate maintenance, low work standards, and defective protection devices were responsible for 59.8% of all possible accidents. Because PCB manufacturing involves many chemicals, skin contact with hazardous substances, electric shock, fire, and explosion were the most common types of possible accidents (81.7%). In total, 505 safety measures were implemented, including 157 related to purchase and improvement of equipment and devices for safety (31.1%), 147 related to the installation/modification of fire prevention facilities (29.1%), and 69 related to the use of standard electrical appliances (13.7%). Risk assessment conducted after implementing the safety measures showed that these measures significantly decreased risk; 247 processes (68.4%) had a risk level of 3, corresponding to "very low," and 114 processes (31.6%) showed a risk level of 4, corresponding to "low." In particular, risk assessment of 104 processes with risk scores of 12 and 10 other processes with risk score of 16 showed that the risk decreased to 4 after implementing the safety measures. Thus, implementing these measures in similar manufacturing sectors that involve chemical processes can mitigate risk.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.576-580
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• 2009

$BaTiO_3$/epoxy composites have been widely investigated as promising materials for embedded capacitors in printed circuit boards. It is generally known that the dielectric constant (K) of the $BaTiO_3$/epoxy composites increases with improvement of the dispersion of $BaTiO_3$ particles in the epoxy matrix that comes from adding surfactant. The influences of surfactant addition on the dielectric properties of the $BaTiO_3$/epoxy composites are reported in the present study. The dielectric constant of the $BaTiO_3$/epoxy composites is not significantly affected by the surfactant addition. However, the temperature coefficient of capacitance increases and the peel strength decreases as the amount of added surfactant increases. The influences of surfactant addition on the dielectric properties of the neat epoxy are also very similar to those of the $BaTiO_3$/epoxy composites. The residual surfactant in the $BaTiO_3$/epoxy composites affects the temperature coefficient of capacitance and the peel strength of the epoxy matrix, which in turn affects the temperature coefficient of capacitance and the peel strength of the $BaTiO_3$/epoxy composites.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.16 no.2 s.76
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• pp.63-76
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• 2007

Typical examples as unrecycled materials in Korea were Zinc from the electric arc furnace dust (EAF Dust), and Moiybdenium and Vanadium from the desulfurizing spent catalyst of petrochemical industries. In the otherwise, though recovery of valuable metals from the waste electronic scrap such as printed circuit boards (PCBs) and platinum group metals (PGM) from the waste automobile catalyst have been interesting issues, it is difficult to collect the exact informations or statistics on their material flow system. In this article, The current domestic research trends for unrecycled or less recycled materials have been reviewed, and material flow and recycling technologies on the desulfurizing spent catalyst were surveyed.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.16 no.3 s.77
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• pp.3-11
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• 2007

Presently, most of gold is smelted from gold concentrates and anode slimes. Anode slimes are by-products of nonferrous smelters such as lead and copper. In addition, gold is recovered from waste dental and medical materials, waste gold coating solution, and waste printed circuit boards (waste PCBs). The smelting method of gold from gold concentrates and various wastes containing high concentration of gold is largely divided into chlorination, cyanidation, and amalgamation methods. For the anode slimes, electrolysis method is usually used, which largely consists of roasting, high temperature melting and electrolysis processes. Also, various wastes containing low concentration of gold are mainly treated by pyrometallursical processes. In the paper, current status on gold smelting technology is reviewed, and a novel process for gold smelting which is researched in the recent is briefly introduced.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.22 no.2 s.57
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• pp.157-163
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• 2007

Tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) is the most widely used BFR (brominated flame retardants) as a reactive flame retardant in printed circuit boards, and as additive applications in several types of polymers. The purpose of this study is to assess the adverse effects of TBBPA on the benthic amphipod (Hyalella azteca). Results on the acute toxicity of TBBPA using Hyalella azteca showed that NOEC and LOEC are 100mg/kg and 200mg/kg, respectively. In addition, when chronic toxicity of TBBPA was investigated at the concentration ranges between 0.01 to 100mg/kg, it was found that NOECs are $10mg/kg(fecundity){\sim}100mg/kg(viability)$, respectively. Significant fecundity inhibition was appeared at 100mg/kg of TBBPA, however, this concentration did not show severe adverse effect on weight increment. The values of PNEC were determined as 0.1mg/kg (fecundity) and 1mg/kg (lethal effect), respectively, using a safety factor suggested by EU and OECD.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.282-285
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• 2007

Smaller size and higher integration of electronic systems make narrower interconnect pitch not only in chip-level but also in package-level. Moreover electronic systems are required to operate in harsher conditions, that is, higher current / voltage, elevated temperature / humidity, and complex chemical contaminants. Under these severe circumstances, electronic components respond to applied voltages by electrochemically ionization of metals and conducting filament forms between anode and cathode across a nonmetallic medium. This phenomenon is called as the electrochemical migration. Many kinds of metal (Cu, Ag, SnPb, Sn etc) using in electronic packages are failed by ECM. Eutectic SnPb which is used in various electronic packaging structures, that is, printed circuit boards, plastic-encapsulated packages, organic display panels, and tape chip carriers, chip-on-films etc. And the material for soldering (eutectic SnPb) using in electronic package easily makes insulation failure by ECM. In real PCB system, not only metals but also many chemical species are included. And these chemical species act as resources of contamination. Model test systems were developed to characterize the migration phenomena without contamination effect. The serpentine-shape pattern was developed for analyzing relationship of applied voltage bias and failure lifetime by the temperature / humidity biased(THB) test.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.8-14
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• 2007

X-ray digital tomosynthesis is widely used in the nondestructive testing and evaluation, especially for the printed circuit boards (PCBs). In this study, we propose a simple method to reduce the blur artefact, frequently claimed in the conventional digital tomosynthesis based on SAA (shift-and-add) algorithm, and thus restore the image sharpness. The proposed method is basically based on the SAA, but has a correction procedure by finding blur artefacts from the forward-and back-projection for the firstly obtained, manipulated backprojection data. The manipulation is the replacement of the original data at the POI (plane-of-interest) by zeros. This method has been compared with the conventional SAA algorithm using the experimental measurements and Monte Carlo simulation for the designed PCB phantom. The comparison showed a much enhancement of sharpness in the images obtained from the proposed method.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.70-81
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• 2009

The patents were searched to investigate the trend and the direction of technologies about the recycling of WEEE (waste electric and electronic equipment). Database was collected from WIPS site, and then 223 patents were selected by investigating abstracts. The patents from 1986 to 2007 were analyzed according to countries, international patent classification (IPC), companies, technologies, and recycling-target materials. The most patents were applied in Japan and by Japan companies. Patents about physical pretreatment technology are the most among the patents of the WEEE recycling technologies. Patents about printed circuit boards among target materials are the most because of its high value-added.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.622-627
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• 2009

Using an alkali-solution developable photosensitive resin and a carbon black as a conductive filler, photo-patternable pastes for polymer thick film resistor were fabricated and evaluated. A photo solder resist (PSR), which is usually used as protecting layer of printed circuit board (PCB), was used as a photosensitive resin so that ultraviolet exposure and alkali-aqueous solution development of paste were possible. After fabricating the photosensitive polymer resistor paste, the electrical properties of thick film resistors were measured using PCB test boards. Sheet resistance was decreased with increasing amount of carbon black, but the developability was limited in excess loading of carbon black. The sheet resistance was also reduced by re-curing and the change rate was smaller in higher carbon black loading. Moreover, finely patterned meander-type thick film resistors were fabricated using photo-process and large resistance up to several tens of sheet resistance could be obtained in small area by this technique.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.323-323
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• 2013

High power light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are widely used in many device applications due to its ability to operate at high power and produce high luminance. However, releasing the heat accumulated in the device during operating time is a serious problem that needs to be resolved to ensure high optical efficiency. Ceramic or Aluminium base metal printed circuit boards are generally used as integral parts of communication and power devices due to its outstanding thermal dissipation capabilities as heat sink or heat spreader. We investigated the characterisation of electroless plating of Ni-B film according to plating bath temperature, ranging from $50^{\circ}C$ to $75^{\circ}C$ on Ag paste/anodised Al ($Al_2O_3$)/Al substrate to be used in metal PCB for high power LED packing systems. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) were used in the film analysis. By XRD result, the structure of the as deposited Ni-B film was amorphous irrespective of bath temperature. The activation energy of electroless Ni-B plating was 59.78 kJ/mol at the temperature region of $50{\sim}75^{\circ}C$. In addition, the Ni-B film grew selectively on the patterned Ag paste surface.