Optimization of elemental recovery from electronic wastes using a mild oxidizer.

Abstract

In this work, metals were recovered from electronic wastes under optimized conditions. The columnar extraction was used to increase the contact between the leachate solution and solid-state wastes. Industrial metals were recovered by an electrochemical process using a regenerated mild oxidizer under optimized operating parameters to enrich the metal concentrations and reduce waste generation. The maximum recovery rate (1.135mg·min-1) was recorded under the optimized conditions (160 A·m-2 current density, 7mL·min-1 leachate flow rate, and 0.8mol·L-1 ferric concentration). The selective columnar extraction process was employed to extract gold, wherein the highest extraction efficiency (69.39%) was obtained under optimized conditions of 0.7mol·L-1 thiourea, 0.6mol·L-1 hydrochloric acid, 0.8mol·L-1 ferric chloride, 120min circulation time, and 6mL·min-1 leachate flow rate. The adsorption process was used for the recovery of gold, which was investigated under the kinetic as well as equilibrium adsorption processes. The adsorption curves conformed to the Langmuir model and followed the first-order kinetics. The adsorption rate decreased with the increasing values of pH, temperature, adsorbent size, while the rate increased with the stirring speed and adsorbent quantity. Finally, acidic extraction under anaerobic and optimal conditions was performed to extract and selectively recover rare-earth elements. The rare-earth elements were initially precipitated in their sulfate forms and subsequently transformed into corresponding hydroxides and oxides. The total recovery efficiencies for cerium and neodymium were found to be 91.7% and 86.7%, respectively.