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NOx removal and copper recovery from the leaching process for waste printed circuit boards: performance evaluation and potential environmental impact assessment

  • LCT Applied to Solid Waste Management Systems with Appropriate Technologies
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Abstract

Resource recovery is crucial for small- and medium-sized enterprises to attain a circular economy. The economic benefits of recovering precious metals from electronic waste, such as waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs), are hindered by secondary pollutant emissions from pretreatment processes. This study aims to recover copper from the WPCB acid leaching process and reduce NOx emissions through the use of a high gravity rotating packed bed (RPB). The results indicate that the copper recovery ratio increases to 99.75% through the displacement reaction between iron powder and copper nitrate. The kinetic analysis of copper dissolution was employed to simulate the NOx emissions during acid leaching, with an R-squared value of 0.872. Three oxidants, including H2O2(aq), ClO2(aq), and O3(g), with pH adjusted to different NaOH concentrations, were used to remove NOx. The greatest NOx removal rate was achieved using a 0.06 M NaOH solution, with a removal rate of 91.2% for ozone oxidation at a 152-fold gravity level and a gas-to-liquid (G/L) ratio of 0.83. The gas-side mass transfer coefficients (KGa) for NOx range from 0.003 to 0.012 1/s and are comparable to previous studies. The results of a life cycle analysis indicate that the NOx removal rate, nitric acid recycling rate, and copper recovery rate are 85%, 80%, and 100%, respectively, reducing the environmental impact on the ecosystem, human health, and resource depletion by 10% compared to a scenario with no NOx removal.

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All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

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Funding

This work is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and the Recycling Fund Management Board of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) of Taiwan under Grant Number MOST 107–2221-E-002–009-MY3 and EPA-109-XB05.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Taiwan University, 10673, Taipei, Taiwan

    Tse-Lun Chen, Yen-Syun Chen & Pen-Chi Chiang

  2. Institute of Environmental Engineering, ETH Zürich, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland

    Tse-Lun Chen

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, National Taipei University of Technology, 10608, Taipei, Taiwan

    Yi-Hung Chen

  4. UWin Nanotech Company Limited, 236, New Taipei City, Taiwan

    Ching-Hsiang Hsu

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  1. Tse-Lun Chen
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  2. Yen-Syun Chen
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  3. Pen-Chi Chiang
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  4. Yi-Hung Chen
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  5. Ching-Hsiang Hsu
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Contributions

Dr. Tse-Lun Chen: methodology, writing-original draft, editing, and data curation. Mr. Yen-Syun Chen: formal analysis and investigation. Prof. Pen-Chi Chiang: Corresponding author who initialized the concept and supervised the whole work. Prof. Yi-Hung Chen: writing-original review and editing. Dr. Ching-Hsiang Hsu: methodology and supervision. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Tse-Lun Chen or Pen-Chi Chiang.

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Chen, TL., Chen, YS., Chiang, PC. et al. NOx removal and copper recovery from the leaching process for waste printed circuit boards: performance evaluation and potential environmental impact assessment. Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 9935–9947 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26223-x

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