| Summary: | Integrated circuit boards are component of most Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). These are generated worldwide at an alert rhythm and their recycling is done to a small extent (about 20%). The paper presents an experimental simulation of the presence of printed circuit board waste (PCBs), from end-of-life computers, in three aquatic environments with different pH (pH 4.00, pH 5.63 and pH 8.00). After stagnation for 17 weeks, values of the concentrations of heavy metals released by the PCBs in the solutions were obtained. These indicated that the presence of these boards in aquatic media may impair water quality by inducing moderate risks for surface water and lower risks for groundwater bodies. Heavy metals such as copper and lead, especially in acidic and neutral environments, fell into the worst quality class for surface water and exceeding of the maximum allowable value for the reference groundwater body (ROSO12) were recorded for copper in the acid and neutral initial solutions.
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