Recycling of indium from waste LCD: A promising non-crushing leaching with the aid of ultrasonic wave

Abstract

The tremendous amount of end-of-life liquid crystal displays (LCDs) has become one of the prominent sources of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in recent years. Despite the necessity of safe treatment, recycling indium is also a focus of waste LCD treatment because of the scarcity of indium. Based on the analyses of the structure of Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) glass, crushing is demonstrated to be not required. In the present research, a complete non-crushing leaching method was firstly adopted to recycle indium from waste LCDs, and the ultrasonic waves was applied in the leaching process. The results demonstrated that indium can be leached efficiently with even a low concentration of chloride acid (HCl) without extra heating. About 96.80% can be recovered in 60mins, when the ITO glass was leached by 0.8MHCl with an enhancement of 300W ultrasonic waves. The indium leaching process is abridged free from crushing, and proves to be of higher efficiency. In addition, the ultrasonic wave influence on leaching process was also explained combing with micron-scale structure of ITO glass.