Open Access Conference Proceedings

For several years, continuous technological progress has been observed, resulting in a constantly growing number of e-waste. The diversified composition of e-waste causes the emergence of a large amount of hazardous waste, which is a threat to both health and life of people, as well as the environment. Nowadays, effective recycling of this type of waste has been recognized as a major challenge for every society. Spent printed circuit boards (PCBs) that are part of most electronic devices, including mobile phones and computers contain many metals. Printed circuit boards cause not only ecological threat, but also serious waste of resources, including copper. That is why new and effective ways to process these wastes and re-use of recovered metals are increasingly investigated. Interest in hydrometallurgical processing of used electronic equipment has increased in recent years due to its advantages - it is more accurate, more predictable and easier to control compared to pyrometallurgical methods. This method does not require the use of complicated and expensive devices. There are many leaching reagents that allow the dissolution of metals. Among the appropriate leaching agents, acids such as H2SO4, HCl and HNO3 can be distinguished. Literature data show that a strong oxidizing agent should be used to increase the efficiency of the leaching process. This is justified by presented in the literature results of leaching with the addition of hydrogen peroxide and ozone. Own research confirms that among the best leaching agents the best results of copper leaching from electronic waste were obtained for H2SO4 and HCl, especially when the oxidizer in the form of hydrogen peroxide and ozone was added to the process. These conditions favor the dissolution of metals. The conducted research indicates a large potential of the PCB leaching method using HCl and H2SO4 with the addition of oxidants such as H2O2 or O3.

Keywords: Printed circuit boards, leaching, oxidizing agent, ozone, hydrogen peroxide

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