Abstract
For hydrometallurgical recovery of indium from glass cullet after dismantling a waste liquid crystal display (LCD), leaching is the rudimentary stage. Though size reduction of the cullet pieces adds convenience for recycling, from an efficiency and cost-effectiveness perspective regarding leaching process development, determining the proper cullet piece size is essential. Hence, in this study, leaching efficiency of indium as a function of cullet piece size was investigated, wherein the proper mechanical classification of crushed glass cullet could be addressed. The optimum conditions of 5 M mineral acid as the lixiviant, pulp density of 500 g/L, temperature of 75 °C, agitation speed of 500 rpm, 2 h process time were kept constant for the leaching studies. It was concluded that the size of the waste LCD cullet inversely affected the leaching efficiency of indium. For efficient leaching, a smaller cullet size is recommended; hence, waste LCD should be crushed to pieces 1 mm or smaller. Indium leaching behavior comparison using HCl, HNO3, H2SO4 revealed that all three mineral acids had similar leaching efficiencies. The reported process provides the missing link between physical dismantling and chemical processing for indium recovery via techno-economical-sustainable process development.
Highlights
Owing to better functionality, excellent optoelectronic properties, proficient design, in the past decade, flat panel displays (FPDs) have become the market leading design for display screens/monitors in both television and IT applications
The size of waste liquid crystal display (LCD) cullet pieces has a significant effect on the leaching efficiency of indium
The size of waste LCD cullet pieces has a significant effect on the leaching efficiency of indium and tin, which inversely affects the leaching behavior of ITO
Summary
Excellent optoelectronic properties, proficient design, in the past decade, flat panel displays (FPDs) have become the market leading design for display screens/monitors in both television and IT applications. Recycling of LCDs can address issues such as environmental impact from waste incineration and/or disposal in landfill sites, health hazard from ITO pollution, circular economy, supply chain instability, import dependency, urban mining, and supply stability of raw materials for nations that depend on imports [7,8,17,18]. It can complement the WEEE (effective 14 February 2014) [19], RoHS [20], and EPR [21] Directives. Directives further by a step and lead to eco-efficient and sustainable recycling of LCD waste
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