Kinetic Study on Copper Leaching in Elec

The electroplating process, which is based on coating the surface of materials with electric current and various heavy metals, has a significant share in the industry. Heavy metals such as copper iron, which is present in the resulting slurry of electroplating process, threaten the environmental health. For this reason, these threats must be eliminated or minimized. In this study, electroplating waste sludge (EWS), which is an oxidized copper waste sludge, is leached with alkali reagents called ammonium nitrate solution (ANS). The effects of parameters on the leaching were examined, and a kinetic model was developed. As a result of the study, the leaching rate increased with increasing concentration of reagent solution, temperature, and stirring speed, as well as decreasing dimension of the solid particle and solid to reagent solution ratio. It was determined that the leaching reaction followed the mixed kinetic controlled model, which includes two different leaching processes together with reaction below 303 K to 323 K and diffusion above 323 K to 343 K. The activation energies were calculated as 84.62 and 28.85 kJ/mol, respectively.