Abstract
Limited metal resources and significant environmental hazards urged researchers for finding sustainable technology for recycling of waste printed circuit boards (PCBs) to recover metals. Therefore, the present paper is focused on the recovery of copper (Cu) from waste PCBs using mechanical pre-treatment followed by hydrometallurgical processing. Initially, depopulated PCBs were pre-treated to get enrich copper in metallic concentrate. Further, experiments were carried out with varying different process parameters, i.e. acid concentration, oxidant concentration, time, etc., to obtain optimized condition for efficient Cu leaching from metallic concentrate. It was found that 99.9% Cu was leached using 20% H2SO4 at 75 °C in the presence of 20% H2O2 within 120 min maintaining 100 g/L pulp density. The obtained leach liquor could be used for electro-winning to recover pure copper metal.KeywordsWaste printed circuit boardsPre-treatmentFroth flotationHydrometallurgy processes
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