The electrostatic separation is an effective and environmentally friendly method for recycling metals and nonmetals from crushed printed circuit board (PCB) wastes. However, it still confronts some problems brought by nonconductive powder (NP). Firstly, the NP is fine and liable to aggregate. This leads to an increase of middling products and loss of metals. Secondly, the stability of separation process is influenced by NP. Finally, some NPs accumulate on the surface of the corona and electrostatic electrodes during the process. These problems lead to an inefficient separation. In the present research, the impacts of NP on electrostatic separation are investigated. The experimental results show that: the separation is notably influenced when the NP content is more than 10%. With the increase of NP content, the middling products sharply increase from 1.4g to 4.3 g (increase 207.1%), while the conductive products decrease from 24.0 g to 19.1 g (decrease 20.4%), and the separation process become more instable. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.