Recovery of palladium and silver from waste multilayer ceramic capacitors by eutectic capture process of copper and mechanism analysis

Review on the gentle hydrometallurgical treatment of WPCBs: Sustainable and selective gradient process for multiple valuable metals recovery

The metal resource crisis and the inherent need for a low-carbon circular economy have driven the rapid development of e-waste recycling technology. High-value waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) are an essential component of e-waste. However, WPCBs are considered hazardous to the ecosystem due to the presence of heavy metals and brominated organic polymers. Therefore, achieving the recycling of metals in WPCBs is not only a strategic requirement for building a green ecological civilization but also an essential guarantee for achieving a safe supply of mineral resources. This review systematically analyzes the hydrometallurgical technology of metals in WPCBs in recent years. Firstly, the different unit operations of pretreatment in the hydrometallurgical process, which contain disassembly, crushing, and pre-enrichment, were analyzed. Secondly, environmentally friendly hydrometallurgical leaching systems and high-value product regeneration technologies used in recent years to recover metals from WPCBs were evaluated. The leaching techniques, including cyanidation, halide, thiourea, and thiosulfate for precious metals, and inorganic acid, organic acid, and other leaching methods for base metals such as copper and nickel in WPCBs, were outlined, and the leaching performance and greenness of each leaching system were summarized and analyzed. Eventually, based on the advantages of each leaching system and the differences in chemical properties of metals in WPCBs, an integrated and multi-gradient green process for the recovery of WPCBs was proposed, which provides a sustainable pathway for the recovery of metals in WPCBs. This paper provides a reference for realizing the gradient hydrometallurgical recovery of metals from WPCBs to promote the recycling metal resources.

An Integrated Capture of Red Mud and One-Step Heat-Treatment Process to Recover Platinum Group Metals and Prepare Glass-Ceramics from Spent Auto-Catalysts

Co-treatment for two kinds of hazardous solid waste is an effective method to reduce cost and increase recycle efficiency of value resource. This work developed an integrated process based on capture of red mud (RM) and a one-step heat-treatment process to efficiently recover PGMs from spent auto-catalysts (SAC) and reuse RM simultaneously. Firstly, the iron oxide in RM was reduced to metallic iron to capture PGMs by the reduction process, without the addition of an extra reducing agent, since SAC contained abundant organic volatiles. Then, the mixed waste of SAC and RM was melted under high temperature with additives of CaO and H3BO3. More than 99% of PGMs can be extracted under the optimal conditions of 40–50 wt% of RM addition, 14 wt% of H3BO3 addition, 0.7–0.8 of basicity, 1500 °C of temperature, and 40 min of holding time. In addition, PGM content in obtained glassy slag was less than 1 g/t. The mechanism of iron trapping PGMs was also discussed in detailed, which mainly contained two stages: migration of PGMs and separation of PGM-bearing alloy and slag phases. Besides, the obtained glassy slag was further prepared into glass-ceramic by a one-step heat-treatment process. It was found that the prepared glass-ceramic has good thermostability and an excellent stabilizing effect on heavy metals. Overall, the results indicated that the developed integrated smelting–collection process is an efficient and promising method for the reutilization of SAC and RM.

Slag design and iron capture mechanism for recovering low-grade Pt, Pd, and Rh from leaching residue of spent auto-exhaust catalysts

Recovery of platinum group metals (PGMs) from secondary resources has attracted worldwide attention from environmental and economic points of view. Pyrometallurgical routes exhibit the superiority in terms of efficiency and contamination control compared to hydrometallurgical process. However, traditional pyrometallurgical processes face the challenges of excessive flux and energy consumption. In this paper, an iron capture process was proposed to recover low-grade PGMs from leaching residue of spent auto-exhaust catalysts. Slag design was explored aimed at reducing the addition amount of flux. The optimized smelting conditions were as follows: 1400 °C for 30 min, adding 40.0 wt% CaO, 22.7 wt% Na₂CO₃, 5.0 wt% Na₂B₄O₇, 5.0 wt% CaF₂, 15.0 wt% Fe, and 5.0 wt% C. The concentrations of Pt, Pd and Rh remaining in the smelting slag were 0.83 g/t, 4.99 g/t, and 1.47 g/t, respectively. Furthermore, the 50 kg-scale experiment implied positive economic feasibility because of saving flux dosage and smelting time. The capture mechanism was revealed by investigating the formation of the metals phase and slag phase. Matrix formed slag phase and separate with metals phase owing to differences in chemical bonding, density, viscosity, and surface tension. PGMs were proved solubilized in α-Fe as substitutional solid solutions. The formation energies for FePt, FePd, and FeRh alloys were -4.149 eV, -4.040 eV, and -4.360 eV, respectively. Finally, the obtained CaO-SiO₂-Al₂O₃-Na₂O glass slag was used for producing glass ceramics. To sum up, the iron capture process realized low energy and material consumption, high recovery efficiency of PGMs, and resource utilization of the glass slag.

Separation of metals from Ni-Cu-Ag-Pd-Bi-Sn multi-metal system of e-waste by leaching and stepwise potential-controlled electrodeposition

Electronic waste, as hazardous waste, contains a large amount of metals, which is of great recovery value. However, they are difficult to separate due to wide variety and complex distribution. Most of current recycling methods are environmentally-unfriendly or complicated. In this study, a simple, efficient and green approach for metals separation from Ni-Cu-Ag-Pd-Bi-Sn multi-metal system of e-waste was proposed combining mild leaching and stepwise potential-controlled electrodeposition. The leaching efficiencies of Ni, Ag, Pd, Cu and Bi were 99.16%, 99.09%, 94.91%, 99.61% and 23.76% with 1 mol/L HNO₃ at 80 °C. The leaching process was analyzed. It showed that the existence of Ag-Pd continuous solid solution in the alloy lowered the oxidation potential of Pd, which facilitated its leaching. Sn precipitated as SnO₂. Then Ag-Pd alloy and Cu-Bi alloy were separately extracted from the leaching solution by stepwise electrodeposition. 97.72% of Ag and 98.05% of Pd were recycled after 5 h with potential of 0.35 V. The recovery efficiencies of Cu and Bi were 97.87% and 97.33% after 7 h with potential of 0.05 V. The EDS results showed high purity property of Ag-Pd and Cu-Bi alloy. This process can achieve cleaner and efficient extraction of metals from multi-metal system in e-waste.

Utilizing E-Waste for Construction of Magnetic and Core-Shell Z-Scheme Photocatalysts: An Effective Approach to E-Waste Recycling

The increasingly large stream of e-waste is seriously threatening the environment; meanwhile, global energy shortage is on the rise. Based on the principles of energy regeneration and waste utilization, we introduced a win-win approach to utilize waste capacitors for construction of magnetic and core-shell Z-scheme Nb-Pb-codoped BaTiO₃/Ni-Pd@graphite-like carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄) photocatalysts for H₂ evolution. Using simple ball-milling, waste capacitors were transformed to Nb-Pb-codoped BaTiO₃/Ni-Pd-Ag-Sn nanoparticles and g-C₃N₄ was coated on the nanoparticles, forming a core-shell structure. The Ni-Pd acted as the electron mediator in the Z-scheme, and Ag-Sn also facilitated the electron transfer. Moreover, Ni made the Z-scheme magnetically separable. The Z-scheme showed a remarkably enhanced photocatalytic H₂ evolution rate, which was 22.2 times higher than that of g-C₃N₄. Such an enhanced photocatalytic performance was attributed to the special Z-scheme and core-shell structure, improving the light adsorption, increasing the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area, facilitating the efficient separation of electron-hole pairs, and maintaining the strong redox ability of charge carriers. Furthermore, the photoluminescence analysis combined with density functional theory (DFT) calculations provided the basis for the Z-scheme mechanism. This study adequately utilized the composition of e-waste to construct a highly efficient and magnetically separable Z-scheme for H₂ generation, which realizes energy regeneration, waste recycling, and environmental protection.