Automatic Dismantling Challenges in the Structural Design of LCD TVs

Many liquid crystal display television sets (LCD TVs) end up in the waste stream today. The combination of hazardous materials such as mercury and liquid crystal, and the labor-intensive disassembly of LCD TVs, make the recycling process interesting to automate. However, since there are so many manufacturers the variation of LCD TVs is high, making automation a challenge. Today's most common automatic process utilizes shredders, resulting in degradation of recycled material and possible decontamination of machine equipment. This paper aims to investigate the challenges related to the structural design of LCD TVs for an automatic dismantling process for the recycling of LCD TVs. The challenges identified during the empirical study were related to the mixture of materials, inhomogeneous materials, thin design, separation of the different components and finding a suitable dismantling sequence without unnecessary removal of components.