Electronic waste, especially used household appliances (referred to as WHA), has become a hot topic of global concern due to its massive volume, serious environmental issues, and significant resource recovery value. The recycling and treatment of WHA are regarded as a vibrant new technology industry in the 21st century. Since entering this century, the quantity of WHA in China has increased rapidly, and the scale of their dismantling and utilization has been continuously expanding. Data shows that by 2020, China's annual production of WHA will reach 100 million tons, accounting for about half of the global total, indicating tremendous potential for the development of the recycling and treatment industry. Since 2002, our project research team has been engaged in technological research and innovation aimed at addressing the overall backwardness of WHA recycling and treatment technologies and the low level of management in China. Through scientific research on process technology, complete sets of equipment, engineering demonstrations, and industrial development, we have achieved significant social and environmental benefits as well as economic returns. Content and Characteristics of Technological Innovation (1) Waste Lithium Battery Disassembly, Separation, and Resource Recovery The developed wet method for breaking down waste lithium batteries can eliminate the potential hazards of heat generation or combustion caused by chemical reactions between the electrodes; the researched crushing screening-electrostatic separation, hammer vibration-screening, and thermal decomposition processes can achieve efficient separation and recovery of copper, aluminum, cobalt, lithium, etc.; based on the ultrasonic cavitation effect, an ultrasonic hydrothermal dissolution-crystallization technology for failed lithium cobaltate was developed, which achieves one-step repair of the crystal structure of failed lithium cobaltate and efficient removal of surface organic impurities, and the electrochemical performance of the repaired lithium cobaltate meets the requirements for reuse. (2) Waste Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD) and Cathode Ray Tube Displays (CRT) Disassembly, Separation, and Resource Recovery Using the characteristics of high-temperature high-pressure water, a waste LCD panel hydrothermal treatment technology was developed, which not only harmlessly degrades the liquid crystal but also The resource utilization of organic acids produced by polarizers can be achieved; utilizing the distinct characteristic reflection spectra in the visible-near-infrared range of CRT screen cone glass, a continuous automatic sorting system for spectrum separation of screen and cone glasses from the entire CRT broken material was designed; a technical process for preparing foam glass building insulation materials based on CRT screen glass and fly ash as raw materials was developed. (3) Disassembly, separation, and resource utilization of waste printed circuit board components A process route for the disassembly, crushing, and separation enrichment treatment of circuit board components was designed; utilizing the density difference between metals and non-metals, a solid fluidized gas conveying separation device and process were developed, achieving efficient separation of metals and non-metals from waste circuit boards, with a metal recovery rate of over 95%; the thermal decomposition technology for non-metal substrates of circuit boards was developed, which can simultaneously achieve resource utilization of organic products in resins and harmless removal of brominated flame retardants contained therein. (4) Waste WHA Management System Abolished Taking Shanghai as the object, the layout of WHA recycling network points was studied and determined. The location optimization for recycling transfer stations was carried out, and the collection and transportation routes were optimized using ant colony algorithm. A waste electrical and household appliance collection and transportation network was constructed. Based on the B2C recycling website, a composite resource recycling and modern logistics comprehensive network service platform and an online waste electrical and household appliance recycling system were built. Academic Research Achievements 7 authorized patents were obtained, including 5 invention patents and 2 utility model patents; one monograph was co-authored and published; 43 academic papers were published in core journals at home and abroad, among which 14 were SCI articles, 7 were EI articles, with 175 citations for SCI articles, the maximum number of citations per article being 94, and a total of 91 citations from other articles. Industrialized Application A waste printed circuit board sorting system with a single-machine processing capacity of 2t/h and a plastic particle production line with an annual production capacity of 4,000 tons have been established, achieving a copper recovery rate of over 98%; an annual processing capacity of 1.1 million waste CRT dismantling lines, a CRT thermal explosion separation system with an annual processing capacity of 12,000 tons, and a waste LCD processing line with an annual processing capacity of 2,000 tons have been established, as well as a waste lithium battery resource recovery production line with an annual processing capacity of 300 tons. Since 2005, cumulative economic benefits have reached 55.42 million yuan.