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Electrochemistry during efficient copper recovery from complex electronic waste using ammonia based solutions

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Abstract

Leaching selectivity during metal recovery from complex electronic waste using a hydrochemical process is always one of the generic issues. It was recently improved by using ammonia-based leaching process, specifically for electronic waste enriched with copper. This research proposes electrodeposition as the subsequent approach to effectively recover copper from the solutions after selective leaching of the electronic waste and focuses on recognising the electrochemical features of copper recovery. The electrochemical reactions were investigated by considering the effects of copper concentration, scan rate and ammonium salts. The diffusion coefficient, charge transfer coefficient and heterogeneous reaction constant of the electrodeposition process were evaluated in accordance with different solution conditions. The results have shown that electrochemical recovery of copper from ammoniabased solution under the conditions of selective electronic waste treatment is charge transfer controlled and provide bases to correlate the kinetic parameters with further optimisation of the selective recovery of metals from electronic waste.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support on this research from M2i project T45.5.12479 and CAS Pioneer Hundred Talents Program (Sun Z). Dr. Y. Gonzalez Garcia from TU Delft is thanked for the scientific discussion and technical support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, TU Delft, 2628 CD, Delft, the Netherlands

    Zhi Sun, Prakash Venkatesan, Jilt Sietsma & Yongxiang Yang

  2. National Engineering Laboratory for Hydrometallurgical Cleaner Production Technology, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Zhi Sun, Hongbin Cao & Wei Jin

  3. Ironmaking Department, R&D, Tata Steel, 1970 CA, IJmuiden, the Netherlands

    Yanping Xiao

Authors
  1. Zhi Sun
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  2. Hongbin Cao
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  3. Prakash Venkatesan
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  4. Wei Jin
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  5. Yanping Xiao
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  6. Jilt Sietsma
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  7. Yongxiang Yang
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Correspondence to Zhi Sun or Wei Jin.

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Sun, Z., Cao, H., Venkatesan, P. et al. Electrochemistry during efficient copper recovery from complex electronic waste using ammonia based solutions. Front. Chem. Sci. Eng. 11, 308–316 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-016-1587-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-016-1587-x

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