Panasonic Laser Recycling Technique for Cathode Ray Tubes

Japanese electronics firm Panasonic has unveiled a new recycling technique that uses a laser to boost both the speed and efficiency of the recycling process.

The technique was shown to the media at the beginning of July, and is specifically designed to work on cathode ray tube technology found in older types of TVs.  The laser used is powerful enough to rapidly break down the cathode rays’ thick glass and, overall, permits item to be recycled three times faster than before.

From a construction point of view, glass ray-cathode tubes are comprised of multiple glass types, meaning that they need to be fractured in order to ensure they are efficiently recycled.  This can be a complicated process, due to the sheer thickness of the glass involved.  Panasonic’s previous technique to separate the glass into front and back portions involved splicing it with a hot wire, according to PETEC (Panasonic Eco Technology Centre) president, Kazuyuki Tomita. 

Cathode Ray Tube Recycling

During the cathode ray tube recycling demonstration put on for the press, Panasonic showed how the cathode ray tube was spun around, allowing the laser to be fired at it from four angles. 

This means that the CRT is cracked all the way around and, after the laser has been applied, it can be broken with just a single chisel tap.

With the hot wire, only 24 cathode ray tubes (CRTs) could be recycled every 60 minutes – a volume that could not realistically be increased because of the need to heat the wire up between each one.

Laser Recycling Process

Using this new laser recycling process, operators working at Panasonic’s recycling facility can get through as many as 72 CRTs every 60 minutes – a 300 per cent increase on the older method.  Tomita added that there were other benefits too, such as being able to handle a range of CRT sizes between 14 and 36 inches in length, when the hot wire method restricted the number of different CRT types that could be recycled to five.  The laser also gives a much finer cut than the hot wire.

The introduction of this new laser recycling technology coincides with an expected influx of CRT-base TVs into the recycling industry, in line with the gradual absorption into the mainstream of digital TV. 

Tomita forecasts that PETEC’s facility alone will process 650,000 CRTs in 2011 – 450,000 over 2005’s total.