Evaluation of environmental and biological impact of Pb-free solder

In order to protect the global environment, the use of Pb is being increasingly restricted, including Pb in solder. Soldering technology using Pb-free solder has been under development through a number of projects. As several different Pb-free solders have been proposed, it is necessary to investigate the influence of substituted materials on the environment and human health. This paper intended to show the progress of Work Package 2 (WP2) of Next Generation Environmentally Friendly Soldering Technology (EFSOT) under the Intelligent Manufacturing System (IMS) project. The results of the experiments described that environmental and biological effects of the substituted metals are not larger than Pb.