Abstract
Waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) present serious threats to the environment but also the opportunity to recover the valuable metals, motivating a search for processes to allow their cost-effective recycling. In this regard, the advantages afforded by liquation crystallization and supergravity technology were combined herein to develop a new supergravity-enhanced liquation crystallization process for recovering metals from WPCBs. The WPCB particles were fully smelted to obtain WPCB alloy. Fe-rich, Cu–Zn, Cu–Sn, and Pb-rich phases were progressively precipitated from the alloy melt as the temperature decreased and subsequently stratified from top to bottom after supergravity-induced enrichment owing to their different densities. Fe-rich, Cu–Zn, Cu–Sn, and Pb-rich alloys were obtained via supergravity-assisted separation at 1100, 850, and 500 °C, respectively. The mass fractions of Fe in the Fe-rich alloy, (Cu + Zn) in the Cu–Zn alloy, (Cu + Sn) in the Cu–Sn alloy, and Pb in the Pb-rich alloy reached 81.8 wt.%, 92.9 wt.%, 91.2 wt.%, and 94.6 wt.%, respectively, in the three separation steps. The final recoveries of Fe, Cu, Zn, Sn, and Pb after three supergravity-assisted separation stages reached 98.8%, 97.8%, 94.1%, 96.9%, and 97.4%, respectively. This study demonstrates an efficient method for separating metals from WPCBs and improving the grade of the separated metals.
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More From: Chemical Engineering and Processing - Process Intensification
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