Publication: Recovery of copper from waste printed circuit boards(wpcbs) via hydrometallurgical method
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Date
2024-08-01
Authors
Muhammad Didiwardilla Bin Sahibuddin
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Abstract
The tremendous progress of the electronics sector has resulted in a rise in e-waste, a waste product that comprises precious metals and potentially dangerous materials. E-waste recycling fosters a circular economy and provides a sustainable approach to reduce environmental impact. In this experimental work, the physicochemical attributes of Waste Printed Circuit Boards (WPCBs) were characterized via XRF, and polarizing microscope and to evaluate the copper recovery percent with three different leaching parameters, acid concentration, temperature and oxidant addition rate, and the effect of ultrasonic pretreatment on the ground WPCBs powder. In XRF analysis, the highest composition contain in the raw ground WPCBs powder are Al2O3, SiO2, and CuO, showing an increment of CuO composition after pretreatment. Polarizing microscopy analysis was done to analyse the morphology changes via ultrasonic pretreatment and leaching as well as providing the qualitative data of the copper content in the sample throughout the experimental procedures. The leaching was conducted with fixed stirring rate (400 r.p.m), leaching time (8 hours), and S/L ratio (1:10) whereas the manipulated variables are acid concentration, oxidant addition rate and temperature. The optimum condition for copper recovery from ultrasound pretreated WPCBs powder via sulphuric acid-H2O2 obtained from factorial regression analysis using Minitab 18 Sofware are 30 oC temperature, 18.3 ml/hr oxidant addition rate and 1.0 M sulphuric acid concentration. This indicates that there is a possibility of obtaining maximum copper recovery from e-waste by using ultrasonic as pretreatment process.