Studies on the Hydrometallurgical Recovery of Metals from Used and End of Life PCBs

In this era of modernisation, the demand of metals is increasing as well as limitation of primary resources created a huge gap between demand and supply. In this connection, attempt has been made to recover Pb, Sn, and Cu from waste PCBs of computer hard disc using pre-treatment followed by hydrometallurgical techniques. In PCBs, encapsulation of epoxy sheets hinders dissolution of metals. Therefore, initially PCBs were depopulated, and then, using pre-treatment techniques, i.e. size reduction and wet gravity separation, mix metal concentrate was obtained. This obtained concentrate was used further for developing various metal recovery processes and optimisation of various process parameters. The experimental results indicate ~ 99% recovery of metals using suitable leachates. The obtained data is presented and validated to develop a process flow-sheet. This work will be productive for the researchers, students, and industrialists working in this area.