Ionela Birloaga, Ida De Michelis, Francesco Ferella, Mihai Buzatu, Francesco Vegliò
This study investigates the hydrometallurgical recovery of copper and gold from waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) using a sequential oxidative leaching and thiourea leaching process. The primary objective is to optimize copper removal to enhance subsequent gold dissolution, thereby contributing to the development of a less toxic and more sustainable alternative to cyanidation for precious metal recovery from electronic waste. An initial oxidative leaching pre-treatment employing sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide was evaluated through a 2³ full factorial design and analysis of variance (ANOVA), with sulfuric acid concentration, hydrogen peroxide volume, and temperature as factors. Under optimized conditions (2 M H₂SO₄, 20 mL 30% H₂O₂, 30 °C, 3 h), copper extraction yields of 76.12% and 18.29% were achieved for two PCB samples, and a second leaching increased copper dissolution to 90% for the more favourable sample. Reduced particle size (<2 mm) and double oxidative leaching enabled 75% copper removal. Subsequent gold extraction was carried out using thiourea (20 g/L) with ferric ions as oxidant (6 g/L Fe³⁺) in acidic medium (10 g/L H₂SO₄, pH ≈ 1.4) at 600 rpm. Tests on waste CPUs and manually removed CPU pins showed that, after adequate copper removal, a gold extraction yield of 69% was obtained, demonstrating the effectiveness of the combined process and clarifying the influence of operating variables on metal recovery efficiencies.
@article{57f78e7f-5141-47e7-a64a-43dec7eaa3fe,
title={Study on the influence of various factors in the hydrometallurgical processing of waste printed circuit boards for copper and gold recovery},
author={Ionela Birloaga and Ida De Michelis and Francesco Ferella and Mihai Buzatu and Francesco Vegliò},
year={2013},
language={en}
}TY - JOUR TI - Study on the influence of various factors in the hydrometallurgical processing of waste printed circuit boards for copper and gold recovery AU - Ionela Birloaga AU - Ida De Michelis AU - Francesco Ferella AU - Mihai Buzatu AU - Francesco Vegliò PY - 2013 LA - en ER -
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